The Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival (XRIJF) was such a treat!! One week of fantastic music, with many shows at many venues — some indoors, and some on stages set up ourdoors. One of the musicians, Cyrus Chestnut (who put on a fantastic concert), remarked that it’s the “best jazz festival in the world,” and my sense is that he was quite sincere.
The last night of the festival, Saturday, June 29, featured three outdoor shows: Mingo Fishtrap (a tight and funky Austin soul band); Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers; and the BIG DRAW for the festival, Trombone Shorty. According to this article by the local ABC affiliate, he drew a crowd of 40,000 (enthusiastic!) fans. Here’s a great photo on the festival’s Facebook page that gives some sense of the crowd’s size. It was big!
Luckily, I was able to get reasonably close to the stage, and had fun taking some photos. (Photos by non-credentialed photographers — like me — were allowed at the outdoor shows only.) That’s him, above. And here are some more photos from his show.
More of my Trombone Shorty photos are here.
After Trombone Shorty, we walked to another stage and saw Dwayne Dopsise & the Zydeco Hellraisers. Another fun show! Here are three of the Hellraisers.
More of my Dwayne Dopsie photos are here.
The first show we saw on the last day, opening for Trombone Shorty, was Mingo Fishtrap. They are good! (We had seen them on a previous evening as well.) Here’s a photo from their show.
More of my Mingo Fishtrap photos are here.
For anyone who’s interested, here are the acts we saw during the festival. (Which involved a lot of picking and choosing; there was much more that we didn’t see. There were 1200+ artists, 19 venues, and 312 concerts, according to the XRIJF Website!)
We’ll have to come back next year, too!
Friday, June 21
– Christian McBride’s Inside Straight
– Nikki Yanofsky
– Trondheim Jazz Orchestra
– Dr. John and the Nite Trippers
– Noah Preminger Quartet with Ben Monder
Saturday, June 22
– Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio
– Loren and Mark / New York Voices
– Shuffle Demons
– YolanDa Brown
– Terell Stafford Quartet
Sunday, June 23
– BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet
– Paul Hoffman
– The Sneider Brothers
– Shuffle Demons / Marti Brom
– Ritmo Seis
– Rafael Zaldivar
Monday, June 24
– Mike Cottone Quartet
– Kurt Rosenwinkle New Quartet
– Courtney Pine – House of Legends
– Sicilian Jazz Project
– ESM-XRIJF Gerry Niewood Jazz Scholarships Performance
– Kurt Rosenwinkle New Quartet
– Hiroya Tsukamoto & Satoshi Takeishi
Tuesday, June 25
– John Patitucci Trio
– The Black Lillies
– Anat Cohen
Wednesday, June 26
– Roberto Occhipinti Group
– Trio Globo with Howard Levy
– Aaron Goldberg Trio
Thursday, June 27
– Ravi Coltrane Quintet
– Dirty Dozen Brass Band
– Mingo Fishtrap
– Carmen Souza
Friday, June 28
– Cyrus Chestnut
– Youn Sun Nah and Ulf Wakenius
– Dirty Dozen Brass Band
– Hilario Duran Trio
Saturday, June 29
– Tim Berne’s Snake Oil
– Mingo Fishtrap
– Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue
– Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers
– Kurt Elling
More! More!
Thanks, Bill — glad you like the photos! We certainly had a good time in Rochester. And yes, I do have a few more coming, although I think the photos from the last night of the festival are my best.