Could two fans hit 12 shows in a single night—and live to tell about it?
Gary Craig|@gcraig1
One evening during the 2012 Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival—my sixth with a Club Pass—I had an epiphany.
At the end of each Jazz Fest, I find myself reliving those wondrous musical moments from the week while regretting the acts I missed yet had heard so much about. "What if," I thought to myself, "I went to every club venue in a single evening?"
Perhaps it was more lunacy than epiphany, but that was my thought.
I then made a mistake: I mentioned my thought to my wife, Charlotte, and then to others (including Mark Liu, the editor of this magazine). Before I knew it, my epiphany/lunacy had become a commitment to try it.
Commitment/lunacy.
Here it is Wednesday, June 26—a midpoint of the 2013 festival—and I am readying myself for the attempt to hit all 12 Club Pass venues in a single night.
The Jazz Festival is my favorite time of year, bar none. For a nine-day stretch, Rochester becomes both bigger than itself and more intimate. The music is an international potpourri, and the crowds a mix of age, race and ethnicity. Rarely does a night go by without an encounter with old friends and new.
Now, I have run marathons. Not particularly quickly, but I have run them.
Those marathons were mere training for this moment.
My daughter, Aileen, home between college and a job, will accompany me. Just weeks before, we ran the Pittsburgh marathon together—her first. By the final six miles, there were pointed remarks: "If you want to go ahead and leave me, I'll be fine" (me); "I think I'm feeling sick" (her); "Is this ever going to end?" (both of us).
She did not get sick. Instead, she finished with a flourish that I attributed to youth. I will need some of that youthful energy to rub off tonight.
Let me say this upfront: If you're looking for sophisticated musical critiques here, you'll be disappointed. I leave that to the Jeff Spevaks and Jack Garners of the world (see the following story for their best bets this year).
For our musical marathon, I am armed with a crude Excel spreadsheet of venues and show times, plus the schedule booklet. It's especially simple compared with the color-coded Excel spreadsheet that Aileen and a friend employed to navigate—with 80,000 others—the Bonnaroo music festival a week before.
So Aileen is the perfect recruit. Charlotte and I have raised two daughters, Aileen and Brittany, with eclectic musical tastes, ranging from the music of their generation to much more—from Bob Dylan to Bill Frisell.
A week before, I was chatting with WXXI vice-president Sue Rogers, a fellow jazz fest aficionado who introduces numerous acts at the festival. I told her of my upcoming endeavor.
"Can't be done," she said.
Game on.
4:30 p.m. We're downtown on Gibbs Street (aka Jazz Street for the festival), and the high school bands playing on the outdoor stage are a reminder of the ample talent in this town. This is the time when lines start to form—or, for some acts, have already well formed—for the shows that start around the 6 p.m. hour. Our plan is to start at the 222-seat Eastman School Hatch Recital Hall at its 5:45 show.
However, there's no line for Hatch, a venue I expected to be problematic because it's usually packed. So we settle in with the music and the growing crowd at the Jazz Street Stage. We check the line again after 5 p.m. and realize we'll have no trouble with Hatch. We rearrange the plan on the spot and head to the Harro East Ballroom for the 5:30 p.m. show. I hadn't planned to start there because I knew Harro, because of its large capacity, would not be a problem. Instead, we'll knock it off right away.
5:30 p.m. The Lee Fields band, The Expressions, starts its gig at Harro—minus Lee Fields. He's a soul singer from the old school, allowing his band some time before his entrance. However, this is not a night when I need performers to dilly-dally with their entrances. Lee Fields needs to get his posterior out on this stage.
Almost 10 minutes into the set, Lee Fields finally appears, in white pants and an appropriately lilac-colored jacket. His smooth voice harkens back to the soulful singers of the Motown days.
He also likes audience interaction. He encourages women to raise their hands if they feel the man with them treats them special. Hands fly into the air, including that of a woman sitting in front of me. But when Fields encourages men to do the same, the man next to the woman seems not to be paying attention. He finally gets it and throws his hand in the air, glancing at his wife, no doubt hoping he was quick enough.
She kisses him—a sign, I gather, that he passed the test.
I've seen love. I've seen soul. I've seen enough.
Next venue.
5:50 p.m. Hatch Recital Hall is an acoustical treasure. Opened in 2010, it features world-class pianists performing solo. Tonight, it's Harold Danko—an Eastman School of Music professor with a long history performing with stellar jazz musicians. Unfortunately for me, the performance has two strikes against it.
First, the night before, Charlotte and I heard the Cuban wunderkind Alfredo Rodriguez at Hatch—an hour of mesmerizing musicianship culminating in an 11-minute version of "Guantanamera" (yes, the song made famous by the Sandpipers and Jose Feliciano). The song's refrain has been lodged in my head all day, though I'm clueless about the Spanish beyond the word "Guantanamera." I know it's not "Guantanamera, Cecilia, Guantanamera," which is what I've been singing.
Second, Danko will be performing his own compositions, and piano compositions can stretch on. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but time is at a premium.
I'm also worried it will be hard to inconspicuously leave. But thankfully, we find seats near the back.
It only takes a few minutes to convince me of Danko's talents. His hands glide along the ivories in a composition that flows wave-like from serene to boisterous.
Less pleasing is the squishy sound (for lack of a more apt description) every time the woman to my left moves her foot. And she's moving her foot a lot.
I sense that no one else hears this, and I wonder whether—this early in our pressure-packed journey—a little of my sanity is already slipping away.
We leave. The sound ends.
I am sane. For now.
6:00 p.m. The next hour is where this could get interesting. In a perfect world, we will knock out some venues early—particularly Kilbourn Hall and Max of Eastman Place—that can require waiting in lines. If not, we'll have to factor in returns for their 10 p.m. shows.
We start at the Rochester Club, an elegant ballroom that in previous years featured Italian-themed jazz. The act for the night is the Roberto Occhipinti Group, and Occhipinti, a Toronto-based bassist, mentions right off the bat how the theme at the club has changed.
"I guess I'm the only Italian left," he says.
"I'm Italian," someone yells from the audience.
"You're not on the stage," Occhipinti points out.
Occhipinti's career is intriguing, especially since he played with the live show of the band Gorillaz. What I've heard from Gorillaz, I've liked. I know them as an animated band—the kind of music that a child who liked Alvin and the Chipmunks (guilty) would discover later in life. I'm kind of hoping an animated creature pops onstage and breaks into song.
Instead, a close second: The band is joined by Mike Cottone, the Rochester trumpeter who is building himself quite a career. I'd hoped to hear Cottone earlier in the week, but missed the chance. Now he's here and his talents are evident even to a novice ear like mine. With matinee-idol looks and a velvety smooth touch to his playing, it's no wonder Cottone is popular in the New York clubs.
We listen to Cottone and the band on Occhipinto's composition, "Umbria," then leave. Later, Aileen will tell me that this may have been her favorite performance of the night.
6:20 p.m. Uh-oh.
There are lines at Kilbourn and Max of Eastman Place, an indication that both venues are full. That means we have to decide whether to wait for people to leave, or squeeze into the 10 p.m. shows.
We make an executive decision: Let's eat.
Aileen goes to the Macarollin' food truck as I wait in Kilbourn's queue. I ask her to buy me the choice mixed with bits of Zweigle's hots and Cheez-Its, while Aileen, a vegetarian, chooses the traditional meatless offering.
Moments after Aileen walks off for our food, the Kilbourn doors open and the entire line in front of me disappears into the hall. Now I'm in a quandary. Do I go in and leave Aileen outside? Does it count if only I get into the venue and she doesn't?
More importantly, if I go in, will she eat my macaroni and cheese and leave me with a container of nothing but lonely Zweigle's chunks?
Aileen returns quickly. We go over to the Max line so we can eat as we wait.
A woman steps behind us. She has left Kilbourn, not enamored with the act there, singer Gretchen Parlato. (The beauty of the club pass: You don't like what you hear, you exit.) She likens her to Astrud Gilberto, known for her vocals on "The Girl from Ipanema."
I am intrigued by this comparison. Aileen and I decide to head over there. Also, there is now no line at Kilbourn.
6:40 p.m. The Kilbourn usher points us to two seats on the inside corners of a row—a location that would require us to walk by six or seven people, then, minutes later, walk by them again as we leave. Then two seats on the opposite end of a row open up. We're in luck.
I find Parlato enchanting. In my notepad I scribble, "captivating, simplicity—yet not." Interpret that as you will, because I presently have no clue what it means.
Aileen is not as big on Parlato. And there is no relaxing tonight. Back to Max.
6:50 p.m. We arrive for the final numbers of the Aaron Goldberg Trio. This, like the Rochester Club group, is a more traditional jazz band. (One of the common misconceptions I hear about the festival is that there is not a lot of true jazz. And while that may be true for some of the headline acts, the clubs are chockfull of jazz—and much more.)
The Max crowd clearly appreciates Aaron Goldberg, the pianist, and the trio. "I'm so glad I arrived on time," he says, which at the time seems to me to be an odd way to acknowledge a standing ovation.
I later find out that he'd run headlong into pre-show transportation snafus, causing a mad dash to the show. I can relate.
7:15 p.m. All of the venues we'd wanted to hit by 7 p.m., we've hit. Things are going well—too well, apparently.
Next on the agenda is the show I've been looking forward to most: Rocky Lawrence Plays Robert Johnson at the Little Theatre.
When I first heard that the Little was added as a venue, I had my doubts. However, halfway into the festival, I've become a convert. The theater goes dark, just as it would for a movie, and the audience goes quiet, just as it would for a movie. It allows you a true appreciation of the performance, uninterrupted by the background hum of chatter common—and occasionally annoying—at some venues.
Based on the pre-show publicity, I gather Rocky Lawrence dresses and plays like the famous bluesman Robert Johnson.
We're not alone in our desire to see Rocky Lawrence morph into Robert Johnson. There is quite a line outside the Little. The 7 p.m. show has started and the theater is full, so we have to wait for the gradual exodus of people who either aren't into Rocky Robert Lawrence Johnson or have plans to be elsewhere.
We, of course, have plans to be elsewhere—lots of elsewhere—but the line isn't budging. Aileen and I try to reassure each other that it's only a matter of minutes before a wave of people leaves the Little and a wave, including us, surges in.
Nothing moves.
I start to imagine a Jeff Spevak/Robert Johnson haiku:
Down at the Little/'Bout to fall down on my knees/Open these doors, please
Nothing moves.
As legend has it, Robert Johnson sold his soul for his talent. I wonder if I can do the same for open doors. Robert Johnson performed in the 1930s, but how does one sell one's soul nowadays? eBay? BarterYourSoul.com?
Nothing moves.
Aileen and I decide: We're leaving. If we dash down and across East Avenue, we should be able to catch the final minutes of Soweto Kinch at Christ Church, which hosts the Made in the UK Series. (It probably need not be said, but the performers all come from the United Kingdom.)
This show started 15 minutes before the Little performance, but we figured—with the ample church seating—this would be an easy venue to slip into after Rocky. Now, we'll complete that half of the plan and return to the Little for the 9:15 p.m. show. We hope.
7:40 p.m.
As we settle into a pew, Soweto Kinch, armed with his saxophone, has a bounce in his step as he introduces his band. "Yes," I tell myself, "we're back on track." Performers typically introduce band members before a final few songs or encore.
Kinch then thanks the audience and says goodnight. This perversion of performance protocol makes me glad we won the Revolutionary War.
As endurance athletes know, there comes a time when human fragility sets in, when you're ready to crumble and concede. I was nearing that point. I'm sure those who have scaled Everest or run the 150-mile Sahara Ultramarathon can fully relate to my fading certainty that this could be done and that we would be the ones to do it.
But then, that spark returns, reminding me of great motivational moments of the past: the Gipper, Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade," Lassie imploring Timmy to stay away from the well, "Bluto" Blutarsky reminding his fraternity brothers that the Americans did not give up after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.
We can do this, we decide. We can do this.
8:00 p.m. My favorite venue of the jazz fest is the Lutheran Church of the Reformation with its Nordic Jazz series. (Guess where these performers hail from?)
Some find the artists too fringe, but I've had my favorite chill-inducing moments here. I'll never forget my first experience watching In The Country, the Norwegian trio, the very first year my wife bought me club passes for Christmas. (It is now my annual gift, and I hope it continues to be so.) Their music wandered from raucous cacophony to poetic near-quiet, with stops at every musical way station in between.
There has been a change with tonight's performance. The Jacob Karlzon 3 were the scheduled artists, but two of the three apparently are waylaid at an airport. So Viktoria Tolstoy—yes, the great-great granddaughter of that Tolstoy—is here to sing along with pianist Jacob Karlzon, who did arrive.
Tolstoy was here two years ago as well. I remember her as captivating and her voice as crystalline pure. The same holds true tonight.
We listen to a song and a half of her singing—her sultry voice more peace than war—then head off to Abilene.
8:20 p.m. Abilene, with its wonderful Texas honky-tonk flavor, is typically where I end my jazz fest evenings. It's comfortable, the music is reliable and fun, and the beer lines move quickly. If there's an afterlife, these would be perfect attributes for it.
Aileen and I bump into editor Mark Liu at Abilene, and he asks how our adventure is going. We admit that the final venues could be a challenge. We still have to make our way back into the Little Theatre, back into Christ Church, then the Xerox Auditorium, Montage Music Hall and the Festival Tent.
The zydeco—and the crowd—is hopping at Abilene. The band: Curley Taylor and Zydeco Trouble. Typically, I'd relish the jubilant Cajun rhythm from a genre that makes the best use of the accordion (OK, polka fans, send me your rebuttals). But my mind is plotting how best to complete the task at hand, preventing my body from falling into step with the beat.
Aileen is clearly one step ahead of me. She suggests we get in line now at the Little, to try to ensure we get into the final show there. If we don't, the whole crazy quest is sunk.
8:45 p.m. A throng has formed outside the Little again, even though we've arrived half an hour early. We plant ourselves in line and wait patiently, a key part of the club pass experience.
By show time, there are only a few seats left. But we manage to corral two near the back. We're in.
Rocky Lawrence takes the stage, in full blues suit-tie-shades-fedora attire. Lawrence is also a storyteller who enchants audiences with juicy tidbits of his life experience. I'm here for music, however, and we need it soon.
Finally, Lawrence launches into one of his own compositions. Bluesy it is, but Delta-seasoned Robert Johnson it ain't. Not that I don't like the Lawrence-flavored blues, but I was hoping for something rougher-hewn, rawer. On a typical night, I might put aside my expectations and enjoy the silkier, purer Lawrence music for the pleasure it is. But this is no ordinary night and, after two songs, we move on. (Later I hear from others that the Robert Johnson moments were stellar.)
9:30 p.m. Back at Christ Church, and Soweto Kinch is performing again—as in actually playing his alto saxophone and not leaving the stage as we witnessed earlier.
The music is leisurely and soothing. But Kinch is also a rapper, and he dives into a rhythmic spoken-word riff, the words flying fast and furious. An audience-participation thing is going on, but I'm unable to decode just what Kinch is saying. The audience, I can tell, loves it. I, meanwhile, am cursing the Brits for never learning proper English.
Whatever the words, we have satisfied our Christ Church obligations. Nine venues down and three to go which, for the mathematically impaired, means we still have one quarter of our journey to complete. And it's getting late.
9:45 p.m. In fact, we arrive dangerously close to the end of the 9 p.m. show at the Xerox Auditorium.
The first year I visited here for a jazz fest performance, I found the environment too corporate for my taste. I could envision a management consultant at the front of the audience with a PowerPoint presentation, telling how a paradigm shift with the integration of our input could compress the elasticity of our output. Then I saw Billy Bang—electric violinist extraordinaire—here and the place was forever transformed for me. (Billy Bang, alas, has passed on, but is likely jamming somewhere in his post-life phase.)
Tonight at Xerox is Trio Globo with Howard Levy. And thankfully, they're still playing.
I know nothing about this trio and may not have wandered over to Xerox were we not trying to hit every venue tonight. But I'm almost immediately enraptured.
Levy elicits a musical sophistication from the harmonica, while sometimes playing the piano simultaneously, that is completely fresh to my ear. Later, some research informs me that he is "the first person to play the diatonic harmonica as a fully chromatic instrument." Though that description seems lifted from the PowerPoint presentation I once envisioned here, the actual sound is a whole lot better.
And Levy is the first performer I've heard mention the major news of the day: The Supreme Court has ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act, which blocked federal recognition of gay marriage, is unconstitutional.
"It's almost like I could love and marry anybody," he says, proving again that musicians are farther along the evolutionary chain than most of us.
This is both the beauty and the beastly of this undertaking: Were we not going to every venue, I might not have heard Howard Levy but, because we're going to every venue, I cannot enjoy his full show to the degree I'd like.
The heck I can't. We stay until the show ends at 10 p.m.
We stay, even though Montage is next. From the beginning, Montage has been the venue of most concern. I decided against shoehorning its 6 p.m. show into the whirl earlier, knowing that the club can often be jam-packed and the lines immobile.
10:10 p.m. We have gotten into Montage but only into the bar area. The club itself is full, and every seat appears to be taken.
Montage has been home to some of my favorite intimate-setting jazz fest shows, including the California Guitar Trio and Hendrix-like ukulele player Jake Shimabukuro. (Yes, ukulele. If you don't know Shimabukuro, YouTube his version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." You can thank me later.)
At the bar we again bump into Mark Liu, who is with our friends Patrick Flanigan and Al Morrell. Mark and I make an executive decision (well, he handles the executive part): If I stand in the doorway separating the club and the bar, and sample the music, that will count.
So I do.
I would like to tell you that the Goldings Stewart Bernstein organ-led trio was memorable, but my mind is too busy worrying about our remaining trek back through the busy jazz fest thoroughfare and to our final venue: the Festival Tent. I am imagining every possible impediment: sinkholes, pestilence, whatever it is people pay to see in Michael Bay movies.
I listen for a few minutes, then Aileen and I—and Mark, Patrick and Al—head off to the Tent.
10:35 p.m. We're standing outside the Tent, chatting. But Mark reminds me that if we don't get inside soon, the show may end and the final venue won't truly be complete.
Playing is Jaimoe's Jasssz Band. I've heard bandleader Jaimoe before; he has been the drummer for the Allman Brothers Band. His own band is jazzier, with an occasional funky Motown flavor. We're a little too busy celebrating our success—with beers purchased by Mark—to sincerely listen. My apologies, Jaimoe. Next time I'll be more attentive.
As the show comes to an end behind us and the tent empties, Mark asks me what the plan is for the 2014 jazz fest since we've succeeded at hitting every venue this evening. Next year, I say, I'll eat from every outside food vendor and food truck in one evening.
Of course, I'm joking.
Mark, you do realize I'm joking, right? Please tell me you do.
Oh no.
Don't try this at home
If you're a Club Pass holder who's thinking of going to every venue in an evening, here's my advice: Don't.
Yes, you may discover something you would have missed otherwise, as I did. But you won't be able to sit back and lose yourself in it. Plus, a new venue has been added this year—Squeezers at the Inn on Broadway—no doubt to discourage stunts like mine.
Or, if you ignore my advice, definitely don't try this on a weekend. The big crowds, especially at the free outdoor shows, will surely impede any attempts to dash from one venue to the next.
I will leave you with what I think is more valuable advice, which follows in line with the Fest's motto of "It's not who you know, it's who you don't know." Sample something unknown to you. Take a chance. The talent at the Jazz Fest is so bountiful and often so unique that the odds are good you'll stumble onto something that you won't soon forget. Unless you're silly enough to be sprinting from venue to venue, you'll be able to sit back and truly savor the show—no Excel spreadsheet required.
