I had a great title for this post last night as we were walking home in the drizzle, but I forgot it. My mind is a bit scattered as I made the mistake of looking at Facebook and learned that a friend who has been battling for her life for months, lost the battle, and no longer has any pain. Add this distraction to a couple of performances that were less thrilling than we hoped and at least one find we did not expect and it was a strange Jazz Festival night. We ended up attending 6 different performances, not because we had a goal or anything just because we walked out on a couple early.  That puts the count at 28 through Wednesday.

We lined up at 3:30 for the 6 PM performance and were just around the corner from Jazz Street in the alley, under the cover in case of rain. We had one of our new seats with us and put it to good use. We made new Jazz Fest line friends who we found ourselves standing next to at Max at the very end of the evening, very typical.

Taking photos or videos during performances in Kilbourn is verboten, but the temptation is so great that I couldn’t resist this shot:

Kilbourn Stage before Diane Schuur Performance

 Diane came on stage with her assistant guiding her to her seat, she bowed deeply to the audience putting her hands flat to the floor. She got settled on her stool and began to sing, and she can still sing and belt it out and sing it soft and everything we expected even though it is clear she has aged. She sang mostly standards and mixed in a fair amount of scat.  She talked just enough to bring us in and not so much that she cut into performance time.  After the set was concluded, or so it appeared, the extraordinary group backing her left the stage and she was seated at the piano where she delivered two more songs accompanying herself on piano, what a treat!

The extra fifteen minutes rendered a run to Xerox to catch the last half of Ivan Jansen, Aruba Jazz Project out of the question. Listening to others and checking the time we headed over to Harro East where Mike Stern & Bill Evans Band Featuring: Steve Smith and Ted Kennedy were about to burn the place down. We entered as the introduction was finishing and settled ourselves at a table so I get some food and drink – our dinner – as the band started. We had no idea what to expect so were prepared to move on.  This was the great surprise of the evening, we couldn’t sit still, nor could the others in the hall, the music just kept building. I’m sure that at one point the guitar was routed through the Korg so that it sounded like an organ, the drummer did a scat number scatting against his drums in a manner I don’t remember hearing and the sax was just phenomenal.  We left the hall soaring after the last notes reverberations were dying out.

Where to? We stopped by The Big Tent to hear Lucky Peterson Featuring Tamara Peterson.  They were good, but couldn’t hold us as we really wanted to hear Ivan Jansen Aruba Jazz Project. We stayed for two numbers and left. Sitting up front, the sound at Xerox was disorganized and never seemed to come together. I’m not sure whether to blame the soundman or the way the group was situated on the stage. A further distraction was Ivan kept fussing with the knobs on his amp and guitar and never seemed to get into the music. The beat had very little of the Caribbean we expected so off we went. But where? We had heard a great review of Jamey Haddad Group at the Rochester Club so off we went. It was our first time this year and two things we had forgotten about greeted us at the door; it was COLD; the menu is great! We had eaten so the menu was of interest for the future and we just shivered. The group was fine lounge music, we were hoping for some extraordinary drumming given the writeups and fact that the leader is a drummer who has developed his own cymbals. Nope, just very good lounge music with a hint of tropic beat.

Where to? Warren Wolfe and The Wolfpack were at Max. When we got there at 10:30 ish there was a short line at the door, but having no place else to go (the line for Diane at Kilbourn was much longer and who was going to leave that show?) we waited. It turned out we waited about five minutes before they opened the door and we found leaning room behind the band. Worth the wait, worth the lousy location! Wolf is wonderful on the vibes and his group was super.

Not sure what tonight will bring. Funeral at 3PM means we get in line for Joey DeFrancesco late and maybe get in for the first show. We have some Greens and Yellow and will play it as it comes once again.

Crossing the midpoint of the Festival. We have looked forward to this since we bought the tickets while traveling in China last Fall, at least the Chinese had not blocked access to that site. Actually we started looking forward to this Festival on June 29 as the last one was wrapping up and here we are almost half way through and counting last nights 4 concerts we have attended 22 concerts. But I am ahead of myself.

When we left the apartment to get the elevator with one of our new lightweight chairs on my shoulder a glance out the window showed it was dry out.  As we walked out the door it it had rained, but the sky was clear. The elevator is slow, but not that slow. We intercepted the same couple as we walked and then split at East and Main as they were headed to Hatch and we on our way to Montage to hear Tessa Souter, again. We arrived in line at about 3:30 to find two people ahead of us and the direction of the line reversed to clear the door of the office building and gym after 10 years of complaints about the line obstructing the door. We waited patiently, ducking under the marquee for shelter from the rain only once. At 5:15 as the sky threatened a major storm they opened the doors to let us into the hall to wait in the dry and cool. It did storm while we were inside. Tessa sang beautifully, as we expected, opening with “Eleanor Rigby”. Our only objection to the performance was that she sang less than we wanted and gave more time in her arrangements to her excellent sidemen on bass, trumpet and drums. We most likely will not choose to hear her again, if there is a choice next year.

We left before the last number and crossed the street to Christ Church to hear Sophie Bancroft & Tom Lyne Trio.

Another great night of Jazz and people on the street. We walked out of our apartment headed for Kilbourn to get in line for the 6 PM show of Vijay Iyer Trio, he is from Rochester (Fairport actually) and is a talented and successful pianist. We noted a couple walking ahead of us who were clearly headed to the Festival. We had seen them the night before walking back.  They were remarkable because of her turquoise toenail polish, among other things. We overtook them and started a conversation which lasted us through the walk and the two hour wait on line. Such is the nature of Jazz Festival. Oh yes they are both librarians from Elmira NY in town for the Jazz Festival.

So we started with Vijay Iyer in Kilbourn Hall and he was worth the wait. The music was complex and required close attention which was rewarded with outstanding intricacies and great performance. They stretched the first piece into three pieces for the first half of the show without a break. We stayed until the last note and then did not wait for the applause to subside, we were on a mission. Catherine Russell was starting in 15 minutes at Harro East and we really wanted to hear her again, as I noted in yesterday’s post she is a regular and worth hearing any time she performs. We made it and even got seats at a table so I could have a sandwich with my beer.

Had a dentist appointment this morning so this is a bit delayed. The other source of delay is trying to figure out if we can hear 10 performances tonight and actually enjoy them.  Not really possible, remember “It’s not who you know, it’s who you don’t know!” The Festival motto.

Recap of last night: We started in line at Kilbourn for Cecile McLorin Salvant about two hours before the doors were to open,

We had a glorious anniversary day. The weather could not have been better (Carol would have liked it about 3 degrees warmer – she’ll get that today). The music was fine and waiting in line for 2 hours at Kilbourn was much more fun as we were on Jazz Street and could watch the crowds and the many people headed for the 4 o’clock Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers show.

Jazz Street from the line outside Kilbourn

 So we got in to hear Jason Marsalis and his Quartet, we even got seats with leg room, the performance was very good, however it seemed to us a bit laid back. It wasn’t until the last third, just as we were contemplating leaving, that he went up tempo and seemed to get into the performance.  As it was we left before the last number to head on over to Abilene to see if we could get into hear Woody Pine (yes that is someone’s name) and get some dinner.  Wonder of wonders we just walked in and had time to pick up meals and stand at a table midway back in the tent.

As we were standing there another couple asked if they could share the table top. I kept looking at the man, knowing I had seen him some place. Then I looked down at his Club Pass and noted he had written his name on it “Paul” at the same moment he noted the “Paul” on my pass and we started to sort it out.  We served on a subcommittee studying electronic medical health records in Monroe County for the Finger Lakes Health Systems Agency something like 15 years ago. We really were on the bleeding edge and as one might expect the project went no place at that time. But I digress: Woody Pines took the stage with his cohorts on guitar (and Kazoo!) string bass and Woody himself on Dobro guitar (at least a resonator top guitar that looked like a Dobro), harmonica and from time to time drum. I don’t think anyone left during the show.  It was solid country very musical and very humourous. We were dancing in place throughout the tent to his enthusiastic beat and everyone with a pulse was smiling.

Still bouncing we headed to Xerox to see and hear Flat Earth Society. Where do they get these names? This group of 14 musicians filled the hall with a lot of sound.  Note I said sound, not music. I guess you can call it music as much as you can call John Cage’s work music. Before we could get to the hall we had to pass through the crowd gathering in front of the Chestnut Street stage to here Lou Gramm. I took Carol’s hand and forged through the mob pulling her in my wake. About half way there I found myself behind Doug Gallant who is bigger than me and we played icebreaker delicately pushing people aside as we continued to advance against the grain (trying to see how many metaphors I can mix in one sentence).  Once in Xerox we stayed for three or four numbers before deciding that enough was enough and we really wanted to hear Two Siberians in Montage.

Fortunately we did not have to pass through the Lou Gramm mob again as Montage was on the same side of it as we were. Two Siberians are actually two Siberians with limited English on the part of the guitar player and none on the part of the electronic violinist. Somehow we found our way to the front of a table at the stage. I am not sure how I got in and certainly had no hope of leaving before everyone else. Since I was facing away from the stage, I had to gradually turn my chair, slowly dislocating those in contact with me.  We found ourselves sitting next to Sally Hirst and her daughter, Sally had been at our apartment just before the festival to present a project she has been working on which we had funded in the past.  The world just doesn’t get much smaller than XRIJF. It was just as well that I was trapped, I had no desire to be anyplace else. The two men from Siberia had the place jumping from the very first. The bass line had everything in the hall vibrating and the violin soared above and blended with so beautifully that we were transfixed.  I would go to hear them again, unfortunately this was the last of their four performances. I guess I should mention that well into the show the violinist broke a string and continued the piece playing around the broken string so that it was not noticeable other than the string hanging from the peg box.

We streamed out into the balmy air unable to let go of the performance we had just heard. Carol and I were tired and decided to give the Jam Session a pass for the night.  There is a bit too much standing around wondering who is going to perform, when, in a very tight crowd. We went home to gather our strength for today, Day 3. We still need to refine our choices as I note we have three groups listed as Green and six groups listed as Yellow. In our system Green is must see and Yellow is we want to see if we can. We are not going to get to nine performances.  Unless we make more than one bad pick it is unlikely to get to more than five.  Last night was four. The Green choices are Brubeck Brothers at Harro East, Rachel Brooke at Abilene and Cecile McLorin Salvant at Kilbourn.

Count so far is 9 – the passes are paid for.

See you on the Street or in tomorrows post.

A brief note to those of you who have joined the list in the past twelve months: XRIJF will be how I refer to the subject Fest from here on.  For the duration of XRIJF, through June 29, I will be posting a daily report on our wanderings through the Fest. This year there are 13 venues, within easy walking distance of each other and our apartment, open to holders of the Club Pass. Each venue will host two performances a night of mostly different performers each night.  That gives us the chance to hear 117 different groups, and that does not include several free performances each night on a variety of street stages and 6 major concerts in Eastman theater.  Finally, we will try to end each night at The Plaza Hotel, just across the river from our apartment, for the nightly Jam Session lead by Bob Sneider which continues on until 2 AM.  Needless to say we will be shifting our body clocks to PDT for the duration.

We are celebrating our 50th Anniversary today, June 21, with time at XRIJF. Click here to see Carol’s post What better way to share our love of each other and music than to wear ourselves out jumping from performance to performance as we seem to agree to the measure when we have had enough of one group and it is time to move on.

Last night, June 20, was extraordinary as we stayed through three performances in their entirety before splitting the 10 PM session in two, getting us to five performances on the first night.  We started the Fest by getting in line way too early.  Somehow we arrived at the entrance at 3:30, a mere 2 hours before the doors were to open for the 6 PM show and we were not first in line.

Outside Montage 2 Hours Before Doors Open

Having almost 30 minutes until the next planned performance on our schedule we elected to eat.  I had reserved a sandwich at Java Joes and Carol went to Ludwigs for a salad.  We regrouped with our food and then moved on to Lutheran Church for Sun Trio.  Far out! as one would expect at the Nordic Jazz Fest in the Lutheran Church.  Trumpet, Bass and Drums, oh yes and electronics.  We are well past the early days when live looping and effects were experimental and over used, even abused.  The use of effects was fully integrated and enhanced the experience.  The drummer made use of every part of his kit and for one piece played so quietly that sitting in the second row we were listening intently so as not to miss a thing.  Once again our plan to leave after a couple of pieces to go to Abilene to hear Nikki Hill collapsed as we could not think of leaving.  It turns out that that was a good thing as reports were that once the first people got into Abilene the line never advanced, no one left, thus late arrivals got to listen through the walls of the tent from the street.

Now it was time to hotfoot is over to Xerox to Lorraine Klaasen, South African Jazz singer and performer. We got second row seating so we could see clearly, hearing in that hall is seldom a problem, large as it is, but the stage is very low, maybe one step up from the floor.  Her group was all African, but from all over Africa. guitar, five string Bass, drum kit and hand drums. Her singing style is reminiscent of Miriam Makeba. Indeed she sang many songs she attributed to her, including what we call “The Click Song” (she gave it a name in its own language).  Again we were captured by the performance and could not bring ourselves to leave so we stayed on.  The only negative was the presence of “the dancer.” This guy is mostly at Abilene where his behavior is almost appropriate. He stands just off to the side of the stage and dances extravagantly and with boundless energy. In this case he was a distraction from the performance onstage.  Furthermore, his whistles of appreciation, are ear piercing and might be fine if they didn’t interfere with the music.  Oh, well I guess no one is prepared to restrict his freedom of expression.

I had been looking forward to hearing Holophonor at Max since starting my preview.  This group of mixed instruments with the leader playing vibes sounds good on Youtube.  Less great in person. Maybe our reaction was driven by arriving 10 minutes into the performance to a packed hall where security was being officious about standing against the wall if not seated. As a result we were sort of around the corner peering around the corner to see them. This was not the way to experience the group so after one number we moved on to The Big Tent where Mingo Fishtrap was onstage.  Usually we find performances in this venue to be overloud and overbearing.  Not Mingo Fishtrap, the eight players on stage were excellent, the balance was fine and we enjoyed the lively performance and audience from somewhere near the rear.

We went on to the Plaza for the Jam Session, but only lasted until a bit past midnight.  None of the out of town performers were in evidence so we crossed the pedestrian bridge to go to the apartment to get some sleep.

Tonights plan Includes Jason Marsalis Vibes Quartet at Kilbourn (yes from THAT family), Two Siberians at Montage Snarky Puppy at Harro East, Woody Pines at Abilene and Flat Earth Society at Xerox.  There are a couple more on the list, but it is unlikely we will get to all of these.  You can listen to any of these groups by just putting their names into YouTube.  That is how we prepare in advance to know who we want to hear and what to expect before we get in line.

If you at XRIJF, see you on the street!  Otherwise watch here for a report of another day of music.

The trip from Brown to Rochester was not the way I used to do it 50 years ago.  Then I filled the car – a 1960 Dodge Dart convertible – with paying passengers and set out for the 400 miles at high speed with a fixed schedule to drop off riders along the way.  I never thought about changing drivers and stops were basic, fill the tank, empty the bladder and move on.  Also the route was direct. RI 146 to Mass Pike to NY Thruway and let’s get it done (note the lack of Interstate numbers, the toll roads were not in the system).

This time we meandered down to Point Judith, about 30 miles, and after a pleasant night in the state park campground, we caught the ferry to Block Island. All those years in Providence and I never made it to Block Island until now.  Norm Topf was at the ferry to meet us and take us to their home where we were to stay the night.  Shelley had baked and she ample food for lunch.  We set out to tour the island after some food and a lot of sharing and talking.  It has been a year or more since we have seen them.  Dinner at Hotel Manisses was wonderful and after a great night’s sleep and plenty of talking over breakfast we caught the ferry back to the mainland to pick up the coach and head another 30 miles west to Seaport Campground in Mystic CT.  We were there to visit Marcia and Howard and their friend Betsy who we had traveled with on the Japan trip in April.

I won’t detail all the meals since we were there three nights.  We saw a lot of Stonington, New London, Mystic and other towns in the area. Betsy gave us her personal guided tour of Stonington Borough where she is on the preservation board. Not only did we see a lot of the town, but we had a lot of interesting stories about the people and places.  As a special treat for Carol two dinners were in vegetarian restaurants. Actually the second restaurant, 6 Main, is vegan. Marcia and Howard’s son David joined us and he is vegan so they knew where to go. David is a percussionist, trained at Juilliard, and so naturally the talk turned to the percussionists Carol and I know and our ties to music and the Rochester Philharmonic. We were pleasantly surprised to receive this link http://artnhv.com/2014/06/04/existence-of-a-small-world-confirmed/ to David’s blog.

As we headed toward I 90, finally, we made one more stop just short of the Mass border to chat with Joe Green and his wife Jenny. We actually pulled off the road into a school parking lot that was empty, it being Sunday, and had room to turn the coach and get reasonably level. Various meals were consumed, Joe brought breakfast I had lunch and we had a wonderful hour to relive the reunion and share more stories we had not been able to get to in the crush of so many people at reunion. It really is amazing how we can pick up the threads after so many years.

We had one more stop to make before the storage yard. We stayed the night at Villages at Turning Stone, the RV park across the street from the Casino. There Carol cleaned the interior to prepare it for storage and I started transferring the limited items we need to move from coach to apartment into the car so that when we arrived we would mostly need to deal with moving the food into the car. They did not permit washing the coach so I will need to find another way to get the exterior cleaned.

I am starting to prepare for Jazz Fest and don’t expect to post anything until that gets underway.

You will have to pardon me if I wander completely away from our travels for another post.  If you are mostly interested in RV travel, stop reading now.

I had forgotten what it is like to be immersed in my class at Brown. It is wonderful to be surrounded by minds as sharp and focused and well informed in so many fields. These guys and gals rank among the brightest in the country and it is a bit daunting at times to be a part of this group. Then we meet those who graduated after us and see how the university has been able to choose from an even more highly skilled set of minds. Many of us feel that we barely made it out of Brown with average grades and we find that the average has risen so high that we wonder if we could succeed in this group.

The campus is vastly changed and in so many aspects totally unchanged. Around the edges the new buildings and the not so new building that were not there 50 years ago ring the Green.  But the Green and its buildings look unchanged from 50 years ago or even 100 years ago.  Much has been changed inside the academic building. Nothing has changed in the dorms. We stayed in a dorm where I had lived 51 years ago and the furniture is unchanged and other than some accommodations for the needs of women and handicapped they are unchanged except for a coat or two of paint. We wandered into my Freshman dorm and located my 2nd semester room on the 4th floor, indeed it is unchanged from 1960.

A feature of Reunion at Brown is the Fora offered by faculty and others returning for quinquennial reunions. We attended three. One was offered by classmate Lee Berk who was receiving an honorary degree for his role in creating Berklee School of Music. Another was a presentation about a lost museum and its recreation. The final one was moderated by an Editor/Author and it was panel of four author/editors with various kinds of work. They all contributed to a book of readings in commemoration of Brown’s 250th year which we were also celebrating. After all we graduated 50 years ago on Brown’s Bicentennial.

Commencement this morning was a treat and a trip into topology. We each passed or were passed by every member of the procession twice. As the leaders passed through the Van Wickle Gates which were opened outward, they stopped on either side of the route and the next group passed through and likewise split and stopped. We stopped in turn and watched the younger classes pass down the hill to line up at the side.  Everyone went passed us. When the last alumna from the class of 2013 passed the first group, that group, the Class of 2014, proceeded down the hill passing us and we joined in behind them passing all those who had passed us. As we passed the graduating class we knew we were at the end and we had high fived hundreds of fellow graduates of Brown. It is hard to guess how many participants there were, but the complete evolution took over two hours. The great planning of David London, our incoming class president, put us in a restaurant just two blocks from the end of the procession on the Providence River for refreshments and goodbyes.  It does not seem likely that 1964 will ever again bring together 209 members of the class – we were just over 800 when we graduated.

We Approach Van Wickle Gates Opened Outward

We completed the crossing two days ago when we pulled into Meadowlark RV Park in the Newport area.  We had covered 3,186.4 miles (who’s counting) stayed in two BLM sites, two highway rest areas two Elks Lodge parking lots and two campgrounds, for three nights.  We were glad to get off the road and just sit for a bit.  We didn’t even go into Newport that first day.  We did go in on Wednesday and toured Chateau sur Mer. It is one of the earliest homes and one that was built, and rebuilt, for year round use.  It was lived in by members of the original family until 1966, that’s two years AFTER I graduated from Brown.

We have set up camp in West Warwick Elks Lodge 1697 for the weekend.  We will be dry camping, but since we don’t expect to spend a lot of time on the coach it should not be a problem. None of the people who thought they might find a way for us to stay nearer campus could get past the liability of our being “alone” in some parking lot.  Don’t tell the Elks, please.

It is hard to realize that it has been 50 years since I left the Brown Campus with my diploma and prepared to marry Carol. It feels like last week, until I look at our “children” and grandchildren. I doubt that if I had thought about this day back then I would have had any idea I would have been a life insurance salesman and then a financial planner for all those years.  I wonder if there even was such a thing as a financial planner when I graduated. I’m sure I would not have envisioned myself and Carol living for extended periods of time in a motorhome, again if there was such a thing.  Yet in so many ways Brown prepared me for all the changes I’ve been through. I learned self reliance, I learned how to acquire knowledge when needed and apply it to issues I wanted to resolve and I learned that I am capable of doing what it takes to accomplish my goals. I think I also learned that it is important to have joy in the process.

I never worked for the sake of work. I liked my clients, even the difficult ones. And I found pleasure in helping them see a way to their goals, even if they had to modify their goals to fit within their means (always the hardest part of the work). I worked as hard as I needed to have the time I needed to be with family, community and friends. Those were always a higher priority for me than building my practice. It wasn’t until I retired and sold my practice that I realized how much the responsibility for the plans of others had sat on my shoulders. I did not worry about the ones who had enough to live comfortably, I did worry about Florence and others like her who had found their way onto my “book” with minimal assets and little income. These were the clients we were advised to get rid of as there was no way to make any money and they demanded as much or more time as well paying clients.  I never was able to do that. I still wonder about a few of them from time to time although it seems unlikely that they are alive anymore.

Now I have time to spend time with family and they are spread across the country.  Our friends spend time in places as far spread as Nova Scotia, Florida (of course), Arizona and California. the only way to stay in contact beyond these blog posts and phone calls is to visit them as we move around the country. I have mostly left community behind. That does not always feel good. Taking an active, leading role in the life of our Federation and our Temple was very fulfilling and gave added meaning to my life. I still care, but there is wonderful younger leadership doing what I have done and they really don’t need the hand of the past trying to tell them how we did it.  I tried being active in the RV community, but somehow the needs did not seem as pressing and there are plenty of others who really get in to it.

Well, I have rambled way off my usual kind of post. We met the Londons, for dinner last night as a sort of appetizer to the coming three days.  Looking forward to meeting the others in attendance and renewing or creating new friendships before we part on Sunday. This post is reflective of the mood I am in.

For people who think 250 miles in a day is enough and two days in a row of that this is insane.  Our first two nights on the road were courtesy BLM (Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior), thank you federal taxpayers.  The next two nights were Elks Lodges in Denver CO and Russell KS (you could look at map and maybe find it along I 70 somewhere near the middle of KS). We are taking two nights in Independence MO visiting our friends the Lustigs who moved here from Rochester 31 years ago. Somehow we manage to pass through every so often and renew the friendship.

When we leave here Saturday morning, we will double time, that is we need to cover over 700 miles to reach Akron OH by late afternoon on Sunday so we can have dinner with the Slepians Sunday evening.  That leaves us 4 days to cover 600 miles to Providence RI, easy!

Oh the plans they do change. Carol and I were looking at the map and realized we are passing right through Columbus OH.  My college roommate and a friend of CArols and mine from our days in Sunday School lives in Columbus.  How could we just drive through without saying hello, especially since Lee reads the Blog and would know what we had done 🙂 To make that happen and still keep some sort of schedule we drove 500 miles from Independence MO to someplace East of Indianapolis where we are stopped in an Interstate Rest Area for the night.  In the morning we will drive two hours and forty five minutes to visit the Cherney’s in Columbus and then continue on another 2 hours or so to Akron.

I think I need to rename this trip “The Reunion Race Across the US” Not only are racing to my Brown Reunion, but we are having mini reunions as we go.  I remember an early cross country trip, 2002 I think, where we visited people in three or four cities and thought it was a big deal.

Oh yes, before we drive to Rochester after the Reunion we will be stopping to see former RVers and still friends the Topfs on Block Island and then we are planning to stop in New London CT to visit with people we just traveled with in Japan.  I expect we will cap off this Reunion thing with a stop in Syracuse to visit my Aunt and Uncle, but they haven’t been told about that yet.