One down, eight more to go…. and unfortunately, I started out this year's Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival with a blister on the ball of my right foot. This is not a good thing at the beginning of XRIJF. You see, recently I've been trying to walk a lot more, counting steps with my FitBit like so many others. Bought some new kicks and walked a bit too much on them early on, including almost 7 miles last Saturday. Luckily, this year's festival is turning out as I expected and I'm not walking back and forth to try to catch every possible opportunity. I'm taking it easy for the time being.
Day 1 of XRIJF was full of jazz. Although I started out with the New Mastersounds bringing the funk, I managed to hear a part of Kavita Shah's set. Loved her eclectic choices of song (I'm a fan of fado and her rendition of Cesaria Evora's Soldade was the bomb). Then after catching some great sandwich action at the BrickNMotor food truck, caught Music Music Music at the Lutheran Church. This trio of Swedes played a great set of trio jazz, intricate and complex, and very satisfying. Missed them last time they appeared, so was glad I took a chance to hear them this year. Ended the night with Dave Gibson's BOOM!, some great post-bop by a quintet of great, young players from NYC, headed by trombonist Gibson. Their second set was killing.
My aching feet will keep me from hoofing too much between venues or I'll never make it to Day 9. As usual, you'll catch more of what I'm hearing if you check out Jazz@Rochester on Twitter and, new this year, some images from the festival on Instagram. I'll be hobbling along….
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