This weekend we made it into downtown San Jose for the 18th annual SJ Jazz Festival, which was once billed as the "world's biggest free jazz festival." Now it costs $5 to get in, which probably makes it the world's cheapest.
It's also probably one of the most fun, especially for the money.
I've been going to shows as part of the hipper, more upscale and distinguished SF Jazz Festival for years. And the SF Jazz Festival is hardly a festival, but rather an ongoing seasonal series of jazz concerts. SF Jazz nets some of the pre-eminent players in jazz today and in jazz history. I've seen Sonny Rollins, Dianne Reeves, Joshua Redman, Joe Lovano, Branford and Wynton Marsalis, the SF Jazz Collective, and on and on. You really can't see these legends play anywhere else in the Bay Area, at least not with any regularity.
The concerts are usually held in San Francisco's finest theaters and venues, such as Nob Hill's Masonic Auditorium (a terrible place for a concert, by the way - the acoustics suck). Patrons tend to get dressed up (who wouldn't for $50 or more for a ticket), and they sit and listen attentively to the music, clapping appropriately after solos. The music is often amazing, but the shows have often left me bored because you primarily have to sit down, shut up, and watch while the musicians play. To me, that's not how jazz is meant to be heard. There's no involvement from the crowd, and I always wonder afterward if the musicians are having a good time. I've seen Joe Lovano at Birdland in Manhattan -- my only New York jazz experience. It left me with goosebumps. The musicians were five feet away, and the audience was participating with hoots and hollers. I felt like I had stepped back in time 50 years.
Flip to SJ Jazz, where shows are held over three days on multiple stages spread out around downtown San Jose. Bands often play simultaneously, so you have to be somewhat strategic about who you want to see and when. But the shows are accessible and lively. The salsa stage is like a raucous street party, with the street packed, hundreds of people dancing, and hundreds more taking it in, standing and bobbing their heads. The main/headliners stage itself caters more to a picnic-blanket crowd, but you can get up, walk around, grab a beer and some food and absorb everything however you want. Meanwhile and after-hours, there's music happening in all the clubs downtown.
This year I hung out for most of Saturday and saw David 'Fathead' Newman, a sideman and friend to Ray Charles for years tear it up on multiple instruments. Later, we saw some new incarnation of The Headhunters, Herbie Hancock's old funk/fusion band. The band leader even dissed Hancock after playing their signature track, saying it was "too bad Herbie got all the money." Classy! Still, people were dancing in the aisles and having a ball. Later on, I watched my friends play in a bar. Again, people were up dancing and having a good time.
San Jose Jazz may not get the big names, but it sure is a hell of a lot more fun.
