The quick review, we adored Tessa Souter and Raul Midon, we enjoyed Kneecap and found Nils Berg Cinemascope a bit cliche. We dropped in on Montage, Three Guitars and would have preferred the three guitars without the vocalist, not that she was bad just a distraction from the guitars.

We have heard Tessa Souter at four of her now five appearances at Jazz Fest and will keep coming back if she is invited again. I think our biggest mistake of the evening was not returning for the 10 PM show. She was far better than what we did get to in the 10 o’clock time slot. Her group was excellent and Dana Leong on cello may have been the finest surprise, to us, of the evening. In his hands the cello performed the role of bass, percussion and multi-toned instrument. Souter maintained a “conversation” with the cello as well as the drummer, Keita Ogawa who used his hands as much or more than the sticks and also wielded something that looked more like a whisk broom for a couple of numbers. Her music was as mostly her own composition and arrangement and held us rapt for an hour and 20 minutes – just a slight over run.

On to Lutheran Church for Nils Berg Cinemascope. The concept of using video from YouTube is a modern update of what we saw at Visual Studies Workshop in the 1990’s. It was interesting then, we found it a bit cliche` today. Maybe we were not in the mood for the music or maybe the distraction of the video was too much for us, we walked half way through the performance and stopped outside the Big Tent for some food, Wegman’s Sushi for me, edamame for Carol, before moving on to Xerox for Raul Midon. While eating we met friends from “other life” and people we have spent time in line with over the years and shared experiences.

Raul Midon is a very special performance. There were a guitarist, hand drummer, trumpet, sax and pianist on stage. All of them were Midon, often several at the same time. His opening number featured guitar, hand drum, and trumpet as well as vocalist.  This blind from birth performer played the drum with his right hand and the guitar with his left, hammering on the notes on the neck and vocalized the trumpet parts. In another number he played a straight rock beat on the guitar while also playing a wandering bass line and using the body of the guitar as a bass drum all while vocalizing on top of it. His explanation for how he can do this is he “has nothing but time all day to practice” I doubt that many in the audience bought that explanation. If he had kept going for another hour, I do believe most of us would have stayed put to listen. He will perform again today at 4 at Lyric Theater, do consider going there  if you missed him last night.

On our way back to Jazz Street we stopped at Montage, our first stop there this year, for Three Guitars. We arrived in time to hear too much talking and then Evergreen which was lit with garish green LED lights facing the audience, UGLY, but then much of Montage is pretty ugly. We really enjoyed the number and were less happy when they brought out their vocalist for what they said would be the rest of the set. She is good, but after Souter and the vocalists we have been hearing she is nothing special and we left after one number to see what Kneecap was all about. If anyone is counting (I am), that was our fifth venue for the night. They play with a lot of intensity and a lot of repetition. I wondered how long the saxophone player could keep up his cycle without breaking to “really” breath. In the end, Carol suggested an early departure and I said I wanted to wait for the end of the number to see how they resolved it. to our surprise there was no resolution, they just stopped and that was the end of the set.

We called it quits for the night, electing not go to the Plaza for the Jam Session, we are already getting a bit tired.

Tonight we are planning on hearing Kat Edmonson at Montage then possibly on to Tito Red at Christ Church and on to Blue Highways at Squeezers and wrapping at Kilbourn with Joe Locke. If we do that it will be five venues again. I will report in the morning.

So far we have been in 13 venues, I am counting!

We almost followed the plan exactly, but at the last minute we jumped to Ben Greene Trio at Kilbourn because there was no line at 10:05 and there was a short line at Max for Dontae Winslow. However first to Joey Alexander, the 11 year old wunderkind from Indonesia. The hype was extreme and the expectations were so high that once again we were in line for a 5:45 show at 3 PM. We were far from alone, by 4:30 it was apparent that late (!) arrivals were not going to get into the small – 250 seat – Hatch Hall. We had watched the YouTube and read the reviews, but still wondered if it could be worth the wait. It was! and he is performing again today, the first performance in a new venue, Lyric Opera formerly the Christian Science Church on East Ave. If you didn’t hear him yesterday and you are in town, GO! He played with the maturity one would expect from a seasoned performer with years of experience. He played Thelonius Monk and John Coltrane and was more than equal to the challenge. He is still a little boy in appearance and stage presence until he faces the piano and gathers his attention to perform then you could close your eyes and not be aware of his youth.

We recovered from that incredible performance and set off to the Little Theater as planned to hear Chet Catallao and the Cats. Chet played guitar with Spiro Gyro for many years. His group of drums, percussion, bass and keyboards rocked the Little for the full hour leaving us wanting more. I particularly enjoyed “Finger Pickin’ Good”. It was loud and satisfying. Following that we took a break and Carol got out her  sandwich while I got my favorite Louisiana Blackened Chicken plate to eat at tables set up on Main Street. Carol may kill me for this selfie:

We showed up with our tripod chairs in line for Cecile McLorin Salvant outside Kilbourn Hall at just a bit after 3 PM. The day was cool and the sun was bright and we were 20th or so in line. Just a bit early for doors opening at 5:30. The street seemed empty until we realized that all the food vendors had been moved off Jazz Street on to Main and East leaving more room for people to mill about when they arrived. Still the line at Max, across from us, had only 2 people in it at 4 for doors opening at 5:45. Where is everyone? We asked.  The traffic started building a bit by 3:30 as ticket holders began to arrive for Diana Krall’s 4 PM show. By 4:30 our line began to fill down the alley and around the corner on Swan and out to East Ave, YES! it is Jazz Fest and the people are indeed coming.

From our early start we were able to get prime seating up above the vomitorium (a real word to describe the entry thought the audience) where the leg room is best and the site line to the stage is unobstructed and the sound is wonderful. The aisle seat was already taken by City News critic Ron Netsky, media has its privileges. We had an interesting conversation, check him out at City Newspaper Music Blog. The moment John Nugent’s young daughter came out to introduce the producer, the audience went silent in expectation. Cecile McLorin Salvant and her group took the stage and we were immediately transported by her voice with its great power and range. Read Netsky’s blog for a critic’s view, we agree with him. For all the power she displayed the most powerful and moving number came near the end when she stepped away from the microphone and had all the sound enhancement powered down for a pure acoustic number, Bessie Smith’s “Blue Spirit Blues” She has the power and the hall is very suited to this kind of risk taking.

We stayed on through the last note before taking to the street so I could pick up a sandwich I had preordered at Java Joes and we could eat quickly before heading over to Lutheran Church for Music Music Music. The hall was almost full and the music was very definitely from a different part of the world. We stayed through the performance then threaded our way through the building crowds to Xerox Auditorium for Ranee Lee, another vocalist with a different style and take on the music. She expressed great delight at finally being able to perform at XRIJF and gave a wonderful performance along with a very capable group of musicians. We hoped the guitarist would sit in at the Jam Session later in the night. It was not to be. As that show ended we headed out for Max to hear Kavita Shah without a lot of hope we would be able to get right in.

Once again we had to thread the crowds at the Chestnut Street Stage Where the Mavericks (don’t ask me) were performing and then past the Jazz Street Stage where Sauce Boss was setting up. It is sort of a full body massage to move through the crowds encumbered with our chairs and packs, but everyone is good humored and out to enjoy themselves. To our amazement the door was open when we got to Max and we found seating off to the side for another amazing female vocalist performance. Kavita Shah performs mostly music she has written either original or derivative and sings with an incredible range of voices and styles. I noted click notes and throat vocalizations as well as beautiful pure sound. Wow! and the night was only middle aged.

On to the Rochester Plaza Hotel and Bob Sneider Trio Jam Session. This is the most crowded venue of the festival. It is in the hotel lounge, just off the lobby (there is no wall separating the two) and under normal circumstances it would be crowded with 30 or 40 people. Needless to say there are many more than that in the space and standing room is at a premium. The treat is when performers come in from their stages and decide to sit in with the group just because they want to keep playing. Last night the Dobro player and the pianist from Hillbender, a country group we had missed, sat in for 30 minutes or so. Sneider called a break at 12:30 and we decided to save some energy for Day 2 and called it quits ourselves for the short walk across the pedestrian bridge to our apartment.

Oh yes, Day 2. I fear we will get in line real early again, Hatch only seats 250 and Joey Alexander promises to be a sellout. He just turned 12 and is reputed to be one of the best jazz pianists around. The sound samples I have listened to do nothing to contradict that assessment. So 3 PM for 5:15 doors open for 5:45 show. Next up we will try to get into the Little for Chet Catallo and the Cats. Failing that, there are excellent performers at Christ Church and Lutheran Church which are sort of on the way back, or we might continue on to Squeezers for Honeycutters. In any event we will head for Xerox and Eric Revis Trio at 9 and then once again try our luck at Max at 10 for Dontae Winslow and Winslow Dynasty. I haven’t thought about where we will eat yet.

Quick recap, last night we got to everything as planned and stuck to our plan, almost totally unheard of in all our years of attending the Festival! Our count is 4 concerts going into Day 2.

If you are interested in references to places and groups that I have not fully defined or more biography on the performers there is lots of material at http://www.rochesterjazz.com/

We are so excited. Yesterday (Thursday June 18) I walked over to the ticket office and picked up our Club Passes:

Well we got back to the apartment in Rochester in plenty of time to go to an annual meeting, attend a funeral, have a dinner and a coffee and oh yes start the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival on Friday. We were just south of Burlington VT for the duration of their jazz festival, but the presence of family and pre wedding events precluded our even getting to hear a snippet on the street.

The ride home through the Adirondacks on route 8 was beautiful and, for the most part uneventful. GWhiz did try to show us a new kind of issue, but master RV tech Paul solved the problem in no time. We stopped for lunch in a roadside pullout we have used before just outside Speculator (that is indeed a town in NY). I went to use the facilities and the water pump would not activate. Since this is relay operated and can be activated from 4 different switches I assumed Carol had managed to try to activate it from the kitchen switch at the exact moment I had tried. Wrong. She was indeed trying and continued to try as I came to to see what was up. First thought “oh darn, (or something like that) we must have blown a fuse, it was working 30 minutes ago.” Quickly searched the easy to reach fuse blocks and found no pump fuse. We were well off the road so I pulled out the driver side bedroom slide to get to the fuse block with most of the house fuses. There I found the pump fuse. No matter how I tested it, it was good. Darn! Time to actually look at the pump, which meant going out in the subsiding drizzle. It was not on fire or anything so I knelt down with my trusty Volt/Ohm meter in hand remembering how little I actually know about that stuff. I uncapped the hot wire connection and determined that there was 12.7 volts DC from the connection to chassis ground. I followed some wires from the front of the pump to the back where the relay that operated it seemed to be. As I traced the wires one of them came loose in my hand. Ah Ha! found where it went, plugged it back in and tried the pump switch. It lit up and the pump pressurized the line. We were back in business. I think writing about it took longer than doing it. The roads in New York are dreadful. I 88 may be the worst highway I have driven outside of the New York City area (we took that on the way too Vermont). The mountain roads were pretty bad too. I sure hope that is all that has shaken loose.

The coach is in storage. I will go out and pet it once a week and start the generator once a month. There is other cleaning and work to be done once we settle into a routine. The apartment is all back together with the pictures back up on their hooks and the clutter of life covering many surfaces. We are looking forward to an active summer which I will document here as we go along.

It was yesterday, after the Chocolate Factory and Shelburne Farms where some of us milked a cow and others sampled cheese and someone picked p and petted chickens, and goats and lambs, and after we went to the party house by the lake and some got wet and some had a bit too much to drink and others of us had wonderful Halibut and King Crab Legs brought from Alaska by the bride’s father and so it went through seven days of preparation (well 6 1/2 days).

The rains ceased, the grounds dried out and the temperature settled into the 70’s and the entire party gathered, finally in Bostwick Garden in Shelburne Museum to witness the marriage ceremony between Daisy and Steven, or was that Sam? yes the groom’s father, who was officiating, did manage to name his youngest son instead of his eldest son as the groom, oops! He corrected himself immediately to the laughter of some and the consternation of others. I would regale you with pictures, but we will wait for the “official” pictures to follow soon. Besides Google has changed the way it handles pictures and my phone pictures are not transferring yet, in a way I can see. Oh look here are the Bride and Groom! (and someone’s leg).

There were a myriad of little girls in beautiful dresses with flowers trapped between two layers of fabric and many little boys – and some not so little boys who played around the garden or stood and watched in wonderment.

After the ceremony, as the bridal party and family paused for pictures we were free to wander the grounds some more until the steam whistle on the Ticonderoga blew, closing the museum and opening the decks of the beached stern wheeler for the wedding reception. We wandered through the collection of Modern Art while waiting and once again we were impressed with what the Shelburne Museum has to offer beyond the wonderful historical museum of farm equipment in the Round Barn and Circus equipment in the Circus Barn and so much more. All of the this is within a short walk of Shelburne Village so our observant son and grandson were able to walk to the festivities even though it was Shabbat.

The party was grand, the food was excellent and the entire staff of the museum seemed to be determined to do everything within their power to make things run smoothly. Whenever my aunt and uncle – he celebrated his 90th birthday two weeks before – wanted to change venue there was a staff driven golf cart waiting to provide transportation and the rest of us were treated like royalty as well. Kudos to Shelburne Museum. Take this as a an shameless unsolicited plug, don’t miss this museum if you are anywhere in the northeast. For Rvers, Shelburne Camping Area is very well situated. It is an old campground and the spaces are well sized. It offers little other than full hookups in a great location, and some mud if should happen to rain for 40 days and 40 nights. Not far away is Heart of the Village B&B which our eldest found to be fine and very well located.

Our boys gathered on the motorhome after the grounds closed at 10 pm to partake in some Lagavulin which was found hiding there. Then all retired to be ready for post wedding brunch at my sister’s house, yum! They have now all scattered to their intended destinations and Carol and I are alone for the moment. This won’t last long! We are heading into Rochester in the morning, intending to arrive late afternoon. We have already planned a whirlwind of activity with Jazz Fest starting on Friday Night.

Watch for my posts from Xerox Rochester International Jazz Fest starting on Friday June 19.

Whew! we kept on the move from Winchester, Candy Hill RV to Yogi Shangri-la on the Creek in Milton PA where Dan, Malena and the Alex and Corey joined us. They were pulling their new trailer for their first extended camping trip. We established a 9 AM departure for Sunday morning and actually were on the road at 9:15. The day was very long as we were going through to Shelburne Vermont, 430 miles. We expected to drive for about 8 hours and the total time on the road was about 10 hours including fuel and food stops. Long hauling for us. The boys rode with us after I dug out seat belts for the couches. this gave them room to move about and not be on top of each other. they read, talked and played games and even slept part of the way. It is was a delight for us to have them with us and Dan and Malena had plenty of time together without them, something as we remember, is not always easy to get.

We are set up in Shelburne Camping on route 7 in Shelburne on adjacent sites. With six of us we are moving around in two vehicles. We visited my sister and brother-in-law first thing and had a lovely dinner at their home on Tuesday night. Yechiel will be arriving from the west coast Thursday afternoon with Avi.

On Tuesday we went to Lake Champlain Chocolate for a tour and tasting along with the Bride and Groom and a couple from New Zealand, Kate and EJ. We were doubtful about a chocolate factory tour, but found it very interesting and the tasting certainly enhanced the experience. Naturally we bought some 🙂 Lunch next door was also fun and the hot chocolate drink was a fine enhancement for our lunch. Others enjoyed the chocolate maple porter. The list of events leading up to the wedding on Saturday are extensive and I will not reproduce the entire list here. Suffice it to say we will be dining “pot luck” with the growing wedding party for the next two nights and then a big bash on Friday night followed by the BIG BASH on Saturday with the the reception being held “on board” the Ticonderoga paddle wheel beached in Shelburne Museum.

I ought to mention, it has been raining since we arrived. Mild and gentle rains and torrential downpours and everything in between. I have felt like I was growing webs between my toes. As I am writing the sun is shining and there is a promise of decent weather for the day, if the forecasters are to be believed.

In the midst of the revelry we had a phone call that a dear friend, Donna Rosenthal, had died. this has put a bit of a damper on things for Carol who grew up in the same block with Donna and for me as I have known her almost as long. We visited her in Brooklyn just last Fall and Carol has exchanged email recently.

We all know what happens when we wash the car, it rains. Washing the motorhome has similar, but far more drastic results. Not only did it rain, it poured and the wind howled and we pulled in the slides to reduce our exposure to the wind. Haven’t done that before. Somehow the next morning the coach still was no where near as dirty as before I cleaned it. Of course 500 miles later in continuous drizzle the coach is pretty dirty, groan!

So what have we done in this time. Carol and I sat in class with Mike Cody of Freightliner customer Support for two solid days from 8 AM until 4:40 or 5:30 PM. We learned how to use the transmission and engine brake far more efficiently. We learned the service interval for every item that Freightliner supplied on the chassis, this is a very long list. We learned how the air system works and the exhaust system too, with the DEF and particulate filter system. I think I even understand how the exhaust from these modern diesel engines is cleaner than the air they take in. Ultimately it is water and nitrogen. They have arranged the service intervals so that an annual service can cover all the needs whether they are on a one year cycle or a five year cycle or some other annual cycle. I think the only thing that needs to be considered on a 6 month cycle is the coolant and I can check that with a dip stick and a color chart.

The morning following class Carol and I woke up in the Freightliner RV parking area where our coach had been parked after service. We gradually prepared to get underway with a plan that was subject to change. We thought we would drive the Blue Ridge Parkway as far Charlottesville and then decide what to do. As we climbed p to the Parkway at Blowing Rock we found ourselves climbing into fog. The Parkway was shrouded in fog and at times it was so dense Carol, who was at the wheel, could not see the passenger side mirror. This was becoming a tiring challenge and there was no purpose as there was no visibility. Eventually we dropped down into the Shenandoah Valley where the air was clearer and the rain was light. We found our way to Galax  and not wanting to spend our night in a very busy and noisy WalMart lot we found a campground, Lakeside RV, just outside town that had plenty of nice pull through spots and not much business midweek in early June. It turns out they belong to the same group as Yogi Shangri la on the Creek, in Milton PA, where we will be tomorrow night. They are both great for families with children, not so much for us when it is just us, the amenities do not meet our needs.

We had planned to meet David and Terry someplace as we passed near Leesburg. So we stopped at Candy Hill RV in Winchester VA only an hour from them. David suggested we try to find a restaurant in Winchester so using TripAdvisor I found One Block West just a couple of miles from the RV park. This lovely restaurant uses local fresh produce and meats to produce a lovely varied menu that changes with what they can find in the markets from day to day. We arrived at 7 and eventually decided to let the staff go home at 10. We enjoyed the food the setting and catching up with each other after not having been together for more than 6 months.

By the time you read this we will most likely be getting on the road to Milton PA where we will stay 2 nights. Dan and family will join us there on Saturday night for the longish drive to Shelburne VT.

Sherlock and Mary Russell accompanied us into Asheville uneventfully. We arrived at Bear Creek RV Park after hours, change of time zone flummoxed us and what was planned as a 5:30 arrival turned out to be 6:30 on the local clock. That happens every few days when crossing the country. We got set up and made dinner and settled in for the evening. The weather in the morning was pleasant and after lunch we set off to see the crafts people in the Riverside Craft area. The area has grown significantly in the two years since we were there last. Many of the same crafts people are still there doing pottery, wood turning, painting etc and many new groups as well. It is quite exciting to see. We eventually did not want to see another mug,teapot, you name it so we headed into Asheville proper to see if we could find Blue Spiral, one of the very best art galleries we know of, anyplace. That is for those who treasure contemporary art. It is quite prominent and the art was very much what we expected, much of it new since we were there a couple of years ago.

After a pleasant stay in Bear Creek RV Park in Asheville we set out for Gaffney SC and the KOA between Gaffney and Spartanburg. The route looked too easy, I 26 to I 85 and we are there. So we got off I 26 on to US 25 figuring we would let the GPS connect us on to I 85 in Greenville. It would have been fine if I had looked ahead on a paper map, or even on Google maps, but I hadn’t and I chose an inappropriate moment to distrust the GPS. Carol was at the wheel and we ended up in the middle of the road trying to decide whether to trust the GPS or my dead reckoning. Eventually we went with the GPS and it worked out okay except we ended up going through Greenville local streets on a Thursday afternoon. Carol was not happy with me or with the GPS. Then we were involved in the audio book and missed our exit for the campground and what we thought was an exit was a closed rest area and we came to a rather abrupt stop – no we didn’t hit anything just stopped short. It took a couple of minutes but we sorted it out and made it to the KOA in plenty of time.

Friday morning we toured the Freightliner Factory where three production lines manufacturer UPS car chassis, school bus chassis and motorhome chassis. There were just three of us on the tour, Ray, Carol and me. We will be together with many others for the class in the morning.

Saturday we drove into Charlotte to visit with Leigh and Patrick. We last visited in the Fall and they were talking about how they planned to renovate the new to them house. This time we got to see the renovated house and it is gorgeous. We had a lovely light lunch at their home and we went to dinner at Halcyon in downtown (or is that uptown) Charlotte. It was a lovely meal. We capped the day on our drive home by finishing “Oh, Jerusalem” by Laurie King which we have been listening to for the past 1,000 miles.

Today, Sunday, I got out the new cleaning system I bought in Tucson and did the coach front to back and side to side. It is a waterless system that was originally designed for aircraft. It is easy to use and does a very nice job. I will qualify the easy part, that is relative to dragging out the hose and bucket and spraying water all over the place then having to dry the coach because otherwise it just waterspots. Besides the sidewalls are 36 feet long and 12 feet high and the front and back caps are 8 1/2 feet wide or 1068 square feet of walls to wash. It takes time and I had to delay for a while waiting for the sun to shift to the side I had done. The coach is beautiful, until the next rain 🙁

We held up in Mountain Home AR for six nights because we had no reservations for Memorial Day Weekend and didn’t want to give up a nice campsite without any assurance we cold find something as nice for the weekend. That decision left us fewer days than planned to cross Tennessee, a very wide state, on our way to Gaffney SC. As we looked at the route on US 64 across Tennessee it became clear that there were not a lot of camping options along the way. I am sure we could have found a state park or Elks Lodge, but we needed to have water AND sewer connections because we were 6 days behind on laundry. We are getting desperate to be connected for that.

This left I 40 as our next best alternative for getting across TN. We have often said, as did Charles Kuralt, driving the interstates is the same as flying, only slower. The “amenities” at every exit are generic and there is no way, without looking at a sign, to tell where in the country you are. After 2  hours in the mountains we found ourselves on high speed divided highway for the next 4 hours and we can look forward to more of the same for the next two days. This will take us over the Blue Ridge and maybe even to Asheville for a stop, but it is a lot of super slab. This looks like a prelude to many more miles of Interstate as we make our schedule to meet up with Dan et al and on to Vermont after Gaffney.

Today’s travel was uneventful. We are in Jackson RV park in Jackson TN. I can see I 40 out the window and the car is attached and ready to roll in the AM. The RV park is a few pull though sites on the front end of a not very well maintained mobile home park. Not our first choice, but the electric works as does the water and sewer so we have what we need and can roll early in the morning – we define anything before 10 as an early departure. We left Marry Russell and Sherlock Holmes in a cliffhanger as we pulled off the highway. something to look forward to when we roll.