It’s Thursday only three more nights, but first here is what we did last night.
As we were preparing to leave the apartment for the 6 :00 PM show at Montage where Connie Han was going to play with her trio, a massive storm moved over the city. It poured for almost 30 minutes. We had planned to be in line at 4:45 but it was still raining hard so we waited and debated how to dress for continuing rain as the temperature plummeted from 90 to 72. By 5 it had stopped and we headed out wearing raincoats and rain hats with an umbrella just to be safe. We got to Montage at 5:35 and the doors were open and there was even decent seating available. By 6 the house was at SRO! The Trio were wonderful and Connie is a fantastic pianist – she would have to be to be a Steinway Artist!
We walked from there to The Temple where Tommy Smith was solo sax on a large stage in a large hall. It was restful, too restful. We moved on to Glory House and Joonas Haavisto Trio. This Finnish trio kept us wide awake for most of the set. We left a bit early to get some dinner near the Big Tent. I had forgotten that the Artichoke French was merely okay. Carol had her own mock tuna she brought from home.
We moved on from there to The Theater at Innovation Sq where Stephane Wremble was assembled with 4 more musicians. his background traces to Django Reinhardt one of the great guitarist/composers who had a Gypsy background. From the moment we entered we could not sit still, even the slow numbers kept us moving. The bass player, Ari Folman-Cohen was a force to be reckoned with along with th drummer and pianist. Wremble’s commentary was interesting if hard to understand given the sound system and his accent. Even though we had another performance to get to we stayed on even when he ran overtime with a stunning finale featuring everyone. We left out of breath and hoarse from screaming to hear Emmaline at the Hyatt.
Emmaline is 23 and I could say in this case it showed. Her voice had a harshness to it. Her sax player was really good, but does the world really need an electronic instrument that has clarinet fingering and sort of sounds like a reed instrument? This was her second instrument. The pianist looked bored even when singing backup. We left early and headed downstairs to the Jam Session with Bob Sneider. After one set we decided to call it a night and save something for tonight.
The plan – I have to make this up as I write it. Carol and I haven’t gotten together on this so it is really more of a possible outline. Start at Montage for Big Lazy at 6:00 on to Glory House for Jochen Rueckert Quartet at 7:30 then Lioness at Theater at Innovation Sq at 8:30 then Tuck and Patty at Temple at 9:15 finishing up at Max for John Bailey Sextet. I’m exhausted just writing all that. I’m sure someplace we will get word that there is something we must not miss. We also will break away at some point to eat. It would be another 5 performance night if we do all of that.
If you are interested in the geography or more information on the groups https://rochesterjazz.com/ will get all the information you might care for. Nothing is more than a 15 minute walk from our apartment – except the Little Theater, make that 20 minutes. Most of the venues are within 10 minutes of each other. How amazing is it that central Rochester has at least 11 good Jazz venues within such a tight circle. Actually there are at least 4 more venues that were not chosen this year.
See you “on the street”