First a comment on my choice of reviewers. It may seem biased, Jeff Spivack at the D&C is an excellent writer and I would enjoy his reviews and link to them if I could read them without wading through endless popup ads that cover the screen . I know I am not a subscriber, I am not around Rochester enough to care deeply about the local coverage they provide, but making it impossible to read a review just makes me even less interested in reading, much less linking to, the paper. Rant over. Oh there may be another reason for my bias, full disclosure here, I am a stockholder and board member of WMT Publications, the corporate name of City, and also close friends with the Towlers who created the paper some time in the dark ages of the late ’60s or was that the early ’70s, doesn’t matter.
We decided to start the last night with Jazz Banjo, Cynthia Sayer and her Hot Jazz Trio at Max.
She declared right up front that she had just met her sidemen, Sax and Clarinet player and Bassist, just before the gig. It didn’t seem to matter with just a bit more conversation than usual they got it together and the set was so great we wanted to come back for the 10 PM show. Cynthia included a history and background for Jazz Banjo in her between number patter. We would go to hear her again, oh right we stayed for the encore.
Once we had our wristbands for Max we headed over to Harro for Majestic. They were fine, but our plan to leave after after two numbers turned into leaving after one, a blessing of the Club Pass.
Following Cynthia, we headed over to Hatch where Benny Green was onstage solo after his performance with 3 other pianists on 4 by Monk by 4 the day before. We sat back expecting to leave before the end but couldn’t bring ourselves to walk before the encore. This encore seemed a bit forced as he left the stage after 45 minutes and returned to finish the set at an hour as expected. For Ron’s review follow this link.
Our plan was to go on to Little for International Orange. I was hungry and the Little is a hike. We walked up to a truck on East and I got a brisket sandwich, better than expected, and we headed over to Kilbourn for our penultimate set. John La Barbera Big Band Celebrating Buddy Rich. This was our best call of the evening. He had his brothers, one on drums and another on sax on stage. Also Bobby Militello was in the middle of the sax section. Four saxophones, four trombones and four trumpets can really stir up a storm. Needless to say we were pinned to our seats and were grateful for the encore.
The line at Max was too long for us to wait for Cynthia for another show so we headed over to the Big Tent for Bonerama. Two numbers there were enough to remind us that we really don’t care for them. The line at Max was still out the door at 10:40 so Carol had an ice cream and I had some popcorn and we took in the scene until it started to shut down at 11. We headed over to the Jam, now relocated to the first floor on the Radisson. It is a bit of an awkward space and we ended up sitting at a table with our friends the Gracis. We could hear but couldn’t see and by 12:30 we had had it and decided to call it a Jazz Fest. Wait ’til next year!
As if we hadn’t had enough, today we went to a sold out matinee of “Million Dollar Quartet” at GEVA Theater. Wonderful performance and great ’50s music. Jerry Lee Louis, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash were definitely in the house and by the end everyone who was able was up and dancing.
Tomorrow we drive with friends to Ithaca, no live music planned, that we know of.