When I started listening and planning for tonight it was clear I was at a dead loss, everything, well most everything, was ending up GREEN. It just is not possible to fit it all in. I think I said the same thing yesterday. After Carol and I sat down together we came up with the following plan. We will get in line at Kilbourn to hear Theo Crocker and then run to the Little to hear Mama Corn, talk about contrast. Then depending on our mood and street talk we could head for Lutheran Church and Obra International or possibly Squeezers for some country by Peter Rowan. Maybe we will just break and grab some food someplace. Stanley Clark at Xerox is a definite possibility and we are thinking of winding up at Montage for Hallie Loren. If you really want to catch up with us on the Street try a txt if you have our number, not a chance of getting a call heard 🙂 email might work also if I remember to look.

Last night, Wednesday, well really yesterday afternoon, we walked the 1.5 miles from our apartment to Lyric Theater, 440 East Ave, again. This time to hear Fred Hersch, solo piano work his variations on Jazz standards, some a little less known at least to me. When I realized he was playing around with Caravans, Ellington, I knew I had heard enough pianists for one Jazz Festival. This year they seem to out number the female vocalists. I’m not complaining just mentioning that sometimes more than enough of a great thing is getting to be too much for me, sort of like too much great Lake Champlain Chocolate at one sitting. We moved on at a rather hurried pace to get to Montage for Mitch Frohman Latin jazz Quartet. We were meeting grandson Josh there where he would spend as much of the evening as he wanted with us. We had great seats and Josh got there well before the club sold out. We enjoyed the performance although we would have liked a little more up tempo music. Maybe we were wishing Frohman was as young as the rest of his group. We wandered over to the Big Tent where Josh and I indulged in Wegman’s Sushi and Carol brought a salad from Ludwig’s. Then we headed over to Xerox for Omer Avital Quintet. This may have been the highlight of the entire Festival for us. The saxophone players, especially Joel Frahm, were phenomenal and while Omer held himself in the back most of the time his dancing with his bass was infectious. Indeed, at one point I suggested to Josh that they were having too much fun. Even as they performed there were signals and quick conversations and the music would change and head off in a new direction. At one point Omer suggested to the drummer Jonathan Blake some change and Blake picked up a sheaf of chart at least five feet long and pitched it into the wings as if to suggest that they were headed into unplanned territory. Omer did one long solo on the bass that was just magnificent – I’m running out of superlatives here. Both Carol and Josh grabbed the CD and had Omer autograph them. This is the first CD we have bought this week. 

Following Omer, Josh headed off to spend some time with Rhoma and we headed to Max for Julia Biel. Maybe if we had not just come from Omer Avital we would have thought she was great. Instead we found her to be very good and most enjoyable, hardly a condemnation but everything is relative.

We closed out the formal evening with that and headed to the Plaza for the Jam Session. John Nugent was just getting up on stage as we arrived. Shortly he was joined by Joel Frahm and then Omer took over the bass and other performers we had seen started rotating across the stage.

The “stage” at the Rochester Plaza

Shortly after 1 AM Carol and I declared total exhaustion and the inability to take in anymore music. So off to the apartment  and to sleep – or was that off to sleep and then to the apartment? We did get up late, for us and thus I am writing this as the clock has passed noon.

Look for you on the Street or where ever. Three more nights, it is hard to believe we are on the back end of yet another XRIJF.