[Dixielandjazz] Sacramento Music Festival Review

[Robert Ringwald]

I found this on the internet. 

--Bob Ringwald


June 12, 2012 8:00 pm •
By BOB FALLSTROM - H&R Community News Editor
For at least 17 years, starting in 1979, I drove to the Sacramento, Calif., Jazz
Jubilee during a four-week vacation trip.
At the time, it was the No. 1 traditional jazz festival with upwards of 100 bands,
50 venues and 100,000 in attendance. Part of the attraction was seeing/hearing bands
who never reached the Midwest — bands from Germany, Italy, Romania, Argentina, Denmark,
Sweden, Japan, Israel, Canada, plus West Coast bands. The venues, including the California
State Fairgrounds, were reached by free shuttle bus, which was always standing-room
only.
My late wife, June, and I tent camped on the west edge of Sacramento in the KOA Kampground.
After June could no longer make the trip because of illness, I went solo. My last
visit was in 2008 when the Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society, the group in charge,
began pulling back, economizing because of a shortage of funds.
The half-dozen venues at the fairgrounds were dropped, along with other outlying
venues. The number of bands dropped. The number of people crowding the streets began
shrinking.
This year, the name was changed to the Sacramento Music Festival, indicating a diversity
of music, aimed at being more appealing to young people.
On this recent Memorial Day weekend, I returned to Sacramento, along with my sons,
Jerrold from Florida and Erik from Berkeley, Calif., and a friend, Russell Discher.
Come with us on another adventure:
DAY 1: Up at 3:15 a.m., for a flight from Peoria to Denver, then a change of airplanes
for Sacramento with an afternoon arrival. We unpack at a rented house on Camellia
Avenue. Evan’s Kitchen in an antiques mall is the dinner site.
DAY 2: The 39th festival begins. The 18 venues are in Old Sacramento, except for
the Hyatt Hotel and the Sheraton Hotel in the Convention Center area. We crowd into
the Golden Eagle Room to hear Dr. Bach and the Jazz Practitioners, a local band of
old timers. Next up, at the outdoors Riverfront Refuge is Tom Rigney and Flambeau,
the tremendously popular Cajun/Zydeco fiddle player who wowed Central Illinois Jazz
Festival audiences the past two years. Then came a set in the Freeway Gardens, located
in a parking garage under Interstate 5, featuring Dave Bennett and the Memphis Boys.
That set had clarinet virtuoso Bennett banging the piano and bellowing country rock
tunes in Jerry Lee Lewis/Hank Williams style.
Rounding out the day, a Sister Swing set in the Hyatt Hotel ballroom. The three-member
Sister Swing vocalists are an Andrews Sisters clone. Bennett was in concert in Decatur
this spring and gave a preview of what could become his second career. Sister Swing
has appeared in the Central Illinois Jazz Festival in the past.
DAY 3: More great music after the morning parade, shifted from Friday: Sets by the
Night Blooming Jazzmen, led by cornet player Chet Jaeger; High Sierra with Earl McKee,
my favorite singer; Uptown Lowdown from Seattle with two bass sax players; and the
Original Wildcat Jazz Band from Tucson, Ariz., enjoyed at a recent Juvae Jazz Society
concert The Night Blooming Jazzmen have been going since 1971. High Sierra from Three
Rivers, Calif., has 24 CDs.
DAY 4: It’s Sunday and the great music continues: Bob Ringwald, the blind piano player,
accompanying Molly Ryan, the singer from New York; Rebecca Kilgore, another Central
Illinois Jazz Festival singing favorite; Frederick Hodges, the Royal Society Orchestra
piano player accompanying the showing of Charlie Chase and Laurel and Hardy silent
film shorts in the California Railroad Museum; Shelly Burns and Avalon Swing, another
California singer; the Reynolds Brothers with a washboard player and down home tunes.
DAY 5: One more time: the New Black Eagles from Boston, Mass.; Vince Bartels’ Best
of Swing Quartet, featuring Nicolas Montier from Paris, France, on saxophone; the
Red Skunk Jipzee Jazz Band of youngsters and Black Tuesday, a traditional jazz band.
Tony Pringle, an Englishman and cornet player, continues to lead the New Black Eagles,
40 years or so.
The highlight of the visit was delivered by Red Skunk, a group of 20-year-olds who
play high energy traditional jazz led by Molly Reeves, a red-haired fireball playing
guitar and singing. The group also includes trumpet, trombone, another guitar, drums
and bass. Wow!
DAY 6: Getaway day. An afternoon flight to Denver, a night flight to Peoria, a drive
home accomplished at 12:30 a.m.
CONCLUSIONS: Bob Draga, Decatur’s favorite clarinet player, was a special guest,
playing with a number of bands.
The early bird ticket price of $95 was a bargain.
I missed the demise of the Crest Theater as a venue and also the absence of the Convention
Center venues.
Food oddity: We ate at the Cafeteria, which is not a cafeteria.
Yes, we’ll do it again next May.
bfallstrom at herald-review.com
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