Jazz Festival

So for those of you who don't know (then again, why would you be reading this if you didn't know me? Its a worthy question) I graduated college about a month ago (5/17/09) and just this week I began an 8-week internship with the a newspaper, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. I'm working at the business desk. So yes, I'm going to spend most of my day typing into a computer and then I plan on coming home and doing it some more. Or maybe I'll do it at work too (just don't call my boss).

**Free Information** The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle is the top newspaper in the country in terms of market penetration. Over 83% of the people who live in the greater Rochester area read the paper, a higher percentage than any other paper in the nation.

You just learned something for free.


But I do not want to bore you with the daily run-down of my day, so how about something more fun? This week, Rochester is hosting a huge jazz festival, which, besides making it impossible to find a place to park on my street when I come home from work, has mostly been an enjoyable experience.

A few thoughts:

It's technically the Xerox International Jazz Festival. As if they were going to copy the entire thing and pass it around the office afterwards.


When I first walked over to the area where the outside part of the festival is, there was a band just finishing up in the big tent they have set up for one of the stages. Their name was "Bonerama" (no, i'm not kidding), and as near as I could tell, they were all instrumental, mostly all saxophones. Their last song was about 20 minutes long. It began with three saxes playing the intro to Star Trek and ended with something that sounded like "Here Comes the Hotstepper"....but it probably wasn't.

After they finished I crossed the street to see what was going on at the public stage set up next to the Eastman School of Music. They were between acts there as well, and since Jazz was never really all that interesting to me anyway, I was easily distracted by the rows of vendors selling all sorts of interesting food. I found something called a "New Orleans Steak", which is apparently what they call a poorly crafted Philly cheesesteak in these parts.

While I was enjoying my sandwich, I started thinking....this is the Xerox International Jazz Festival (although I bet they wouldn't like it if you copied it).....but is jazz really an international thing? Isn't Jazz something that is truly, truly American in both its roots and even in the way it has developed over time? Funny, that as I was thinking about these exact issues, a new band was being introduced on stage, and the guy doing the talking mentioned that they had come to the Festival from Toronto. So THERE was my answer. International means that they have bands come all the way from Toronto (about 3 hours away). How could I have forgotten about that hotbed of Jazz musicians? At that point I realized that the guys operating the "Bayou Billy's Louisiana-style Meats" truck (no, really, that was the name) probably came from farther away than these international jazz guys.

So to recap...in Rochester the jazz is from Toronto, the cheesesteaks are from New Orleans, and I'm quite confused.


In all fairness, I must mention that there is actually an entire stage dedicated to "Nordic Jazz" this week (yes, that means jazz bands from Norway, Sweeden, Finland, etc.) and its a shame you have to pay to see those shows because I would LOVE to find out what "Nordic Jazz" sounds like.