Worth the trip

Let me tell you a little more about this little venture we've got goin' up here affectionately known as jazz fest (lowercase, thank you very much).

When you've got nine days and a laminated thingus that gives you access to just about any show you'd want to see, as long as you're occasionally willing to stand in line for 60 or 90 minutes, well, it's easy to feel reeeeeally hungry for jazz.

Psychologically, you want to pack it all in. You want to get your money's worth. You think, geez, if I go to the 5:30 show at Club L, I can catch the 8 o'clock over at K, and then the 10 o'clock at M.

And you do this for six, seven, eight, nine days straight. You're proud of yourself for having it all figured out ... and you get a little batty.

Maybe it's like being a cruise ship virgin.

Cruise ship virgins try to pack it all in, every day, every meal, every land excursion.

But the veterans know you might as well relax. The midnight chocolate buffet will be there again; every day is worth savoring because you just don't know what might happen next. Your itinerary might be dismantled by a hurricane and you'll miss St. Barts, but you'll get more time at Half Moon Cay.

You say I digress, but there's logic at work here, trust me.

There's something to be said for weaving in some good conversation, some pool playing, some cocktailing along the way instead of trying to pack so many shows onto one's plate at jazz fest. 

Maybe that's a nice metaphor for life, too, now that you mention it.

The thing about having lived through a jazz fest or two is that I've learned I'd rather take it easy. I love the way I can decide at 6 p.m. that I'll just lock my door and walk on over and stand in line for the John Scofield show. What the heck. Now, remember, I trashed his ass last year. Just could not abide that Trio Beyond stuff. But I have to admit, maybe I just wasn't in the mood. I was all gooey-eyed over ... smirksigh ... I'm almost embarrassed to say it ... I was all besotted over Jean-Luc Ponty. Hey, I have more Ponty LPs than Scofield LPs, OK, so it stands to reason.

Sort of.

But this year, the John Scofield Trio was worth the walk. Listening to their gig was like watching art being created. The interplay between these guys was breathtaking. Toward the end of the set, the most amazing thing happened: During a Bill Stewart drum solo, Scofield and the bass player, Steve Swallow, backed him up in a way that almost let Stewart create the melody, like reality folded over on itself.  I've never seen or heard anything like it. They bookended him in the most magical, supportive way, keeping the beat and letting the drummer go off on a lyrical flight of fancy.

Sco', as my buddy Jack Garner likes to call him, was HOT. If you've never seen this guy in action, you really ought to check him out. You know I'm a fan of great guitar work, and Scofield has become one of my favorites. I'm not sure I'd die to have a beer or a baby with him like I would Clapton, but he's right up there. 

Perhaps you'd prefer to catch them (plus the ScoHorns) now through Sunday at the Blue Note.

By the way, The Bad Plus exercise a different sort of addition next week at the JVC Fest down in NYC, so maybe you can see them there, too. 

I'm off in search of more pool and more Porkslap Ale for my music-lovin' friends.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Camping, my arse

Guys, the next time I tell you I'm going to go camping instead of going to a nine-day music festival in my back yard, would you hit me upside the head, please?

Camping. What was I thinking?

Don't get me wrong. I like the idea of camping. Being unplugged for a few days, hiking my butt off, avoiding the ordinary stressors – I can get into that. 

But doing that in lieu of attending the jazz festival, while it felt like a good idea for the last six weeks or so, was just ... wrong.

I knew it as soon as I slipped my Club Pass lanyard over my head for the seventh year in a row. What kind of fool am I, I thought, to walk away from THIS? As Timo Lassy and his band got going at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation, I knew I had no business curling up in a tent anytime, anywhere this month.

Jazz has been a natural, expected part of my life for what seems like forever. From my Uncle Ed putting Kind of Blue on for background music during Thanksgiving dinner to a high school band teacher named Larry Marik trying to impart things he had learned at North Texas State to a bunch of ornery flatlander kids, I've been lucky. Jazz just is; I've taken it for granted, really; never really stopped to think about how or why it is what it is, or why I like it, in most of its forms.

So from catching that first gig Friday night, through The Bad Plus and its Plus One on Saturday, a quick set with Robin McKelle – "If you like that sort of thing"– and on to John Scofield and his trio Sunday night, I am definitely in the right place at the right time. 

Aided and abetted, of course, by the gracious confines of the fabulous new Abilene Bar and Lounge, with its pristine new pool table and Porkslap Pale Ale for $2 a can. The music here has been surprisingly superlative, and we'll be back.

Covering classical music the way we cover sports

How do we come by our passions? What fires you up? Who turns you on?
And how does that happen?

I was a musical kid, playing violin, piano, guitar, French horn; making up music on the piano, making up songs to sing out in the middle of a pasture or cornfield where nobody could hear me. Everybody figured I'd be a music major in college. I grew up knowing that Oberlin, Juilliard and Eastman were places to aspire to.

All along, through youth symphony and All-State and music camp and weekly treks to Omaha or Lincoln for lessons, as I got older, my musical friends and I seemed to have a sense I was better suited to a supporting role in the world of music than to a performing/creating role.

So after deciding that making newspapers was more fun than making music, life kind of took over and my awareness of my musical options ebbed and flowed. Thank God for WCPE-FM; as a volunteer announcer there, I made so many good friends and learned so much about classical music.
When I moved away and got divorced and tried to re-calibrate myself in the Central time zone, classical music took a back seat to ... I don't know. I just kind of backed away from it for a few years in the mid-'90s. I had a house and a dog and a new Cannondale bike and my mom had cancer, and I guess I started sitting still less.

And then, one night in the most fabulous city in Kansas, I met HIM.

With a laugh as big as Texas, rose-colored glasses and a Ketel One martini, he blew me away. He loved NASCAR and the Dallas Cowboys and OPERA.

Ka-POW!

And I started going to concerts again. Started shooting pool with classical guitarists and anybody else who'd be passing through town, looking for a pre- or post-concert diversion.

When we would go to a concert, say, a symphony concert in a traditional auditorium setting, this guy would, when appropriate, GO NUTS if the performance warranted it.
Hoot and holler, stomp his feet, pump his fist in the air -- he was unabashed in his enthusiasm for great art.
It scared me at first. Embarrassed me. Gaaaah! Who IS this freak?
But then it dawned on me: This is a perfectly normal reaction to being MOVED.

And we'd shoot the breeze with the performers afterwards, and his sometimes obnoxious gregariousness was so very real. He CARED about great music, whether it was being performed in a city-sanctioned venue or a renovated barn out in the country.

In the course of rediscovering classical music -- in Kansas, home to just as much culture and talent and passion as anywhere, thank you very much -- I started thinking that there had to be a better way for newspapers to help make the connection between readers and all the options out there.
Why NOT tap into the enthusiasm, the curiosity that's a natural part of art? Why not fire up conversations about it? Why not talk to the performers about how the concert went, how they felt about the program, what the soloist was like to rehearse with?Why not go backstage after the show and interview the conductor, the soloist, the last-chair second violin, and get a sense of how it felt for them. What might they have done differently? How did they feel about playing freaking STRAUSS for the umpteenth time that season?

Well, maybe it'd be too much like pulling the curtain off the Wizard of Oz.

But wouldn't those observations open up another layer of reality and give more people an opportunity to discover classical music? Wouldn't that help people make sense of it, come to terms with it? Wouldn't that be so much more interesting to read than some bozo like me
opining about what we heard and saw?
Wouldn't it help make classical music more accessible to more people?

Call me a dreamer. But my career won't be complete until I get a chance to see if we can pull this off. You'd have to have a good understanding, a good relationship with the local performing entities -- you'd need to explain to the music director of the local symphony what you were trying to do, and how it would affect her, and you'd need to get them on your side about post-game interviews in the locker room, because it's such a ... well, it's just not done. Much. Yet.

This is Rochester ... or ... Life. Is. Too. Short.

This afternoon, I managed to find my way across the river to The German House,  where a few hundred folks had gathered for a fundraiser to benefit Ben, a key member of the Wild Geese.

I'd first encountered the Wild Geese exactly 7 years ago. My friend Greg was visiting from D.C. for the weekend, and we were spending a Sunday afternoon up by the lake. We'd taken refuge in an Irish pub and proceeded to dominate the pool table ... accompanied by the fine work of this young band. 

I shot the breeze with one of the guys in the band -- could it have been Ben? He's a gregarious sort, so I suspect as much -- and fell in love with them (not him; his bride Maeve seems like she'd be a good friend of mine, were we to actually meet).

And I proceeded to sit on my ass for the next half a dozen years and never encounter Wild Geese again.

Until this afternoon.

See, Ben got bit by the same nasty (I'm going to swear here, because it warrants it) by the same nasty fucking disease that killed my friend Frosty three years ago. 

Ben was lucky. They got it before it got him, but it's not been an easy road for him.

Hence, today's fundraiser. 

The German House was packed to the gills with Irish folks, and friends and lovers of Irish folks. Being there was like being a special guest at an Irish family reunion.  Great beers, great cocktails, great company, great music. People smiling BIG, kissing old friends on the lips. 

When the Wild Geese -- let's see; five guitars, a violinist, a drummer, Maeve on bass and Ben on guitar and mandolin -- took the stage, it was Irish bedlam. He looks so good! He sounds so good!

I was balancing my checkbook in my head like an accountant on crack, trying so so hard not to cry. Numbers, Jann, numbers. Think about something else. You don't know these people. Don't cry.

But geeez, it was so awesome to see this guy who laughed at death playing like nothing had ever happened. And the audience, singing along to just about every song.

This is Rochester, folks. 

I've hated this fucking town a lot over the seven years I've been here. It's cold, it's pushy, it's overcrowded, it's rude, it's old and dingy.

But today, for all of you who've listened to me bitch these last few years, I wish you could have been with me at this performance. 

It's things like this that make Rochester what it is -- an irresistible, funny, sweet, endearing place.

I'm thinking how lucky I am to be here -- today, great music on the first day of a month that is going to be obscenely filled with great music -- and just marveling at the power and the love in this place ... and who do I see out of the corner of my eye but ....

the freaking MAYOR.

The damn MAYOR shows up.

We have the coolest mayor anywhere. I love this guy. He's a straight shooter and he supports his people and the things going on in his town. He LIVES this place. He knows what's going on and he's OUT HERE.

I'm not traditionally a big fan of mayors. They tend to be pains in the ass; pompous blowhards.

This guy? He's the real deal. God bless him.

Dr. John, playing here last year for the jazz festival, was ranting between songs about how crappy things were in Nawlins after Katrina. He had a few, uhm, unsympathetic things to say about mayors.

"But not your mayor," he said. "I'm DIGGIN' on your mayor," who was out and about and sharing the love of the jazz festival.

So. Get out there. Listen to some live music. Love your friends before a nasty disease sneaks up on them and screws up their life and yours. And have the damn huevos to make a difference where you live.