Rochester Jazz & James
July 1, 2004
by Craig Curtice

This year’s dizzying nine-day Rochester International Jazz Festival, held on June 4-12, saw more than 500 musicians from around the world play 100 shows over nine days at venues located in downtown Rochester, NY. The festival was extremely proud to present headliners Oscar Peterson, Marian McPartland, Yolanda Adams, Bobby McFerrin, and Rite of Strings (Clarke, Di Meola, & Ponty), and the first night alone boasted shows by David Sanborn, Earl Klugh, Mose Allison, Sliding Hammers, Ian Shaw, Paul Cebar & the Milwaukeeans, Matthias Lupri Quintet, Assaf Rozov, Trip Hazard, and Trio da Paz.

Thankfully not every invited performer was strictly jazz (hey, I’m still a metalhead at heart you know) and ever since the line-up was introduced, I’ve had the date saved to see guitarist James “Blood” Ulmer. The rangy bluesman/free jazz funkateer was scheduled to play two shows at the intimate club Milestones (6:30 & 10:00 PM), and since I didn’t want to be out all night, I decided to go to the first show.

The weather had been really sunny for the past couple of days, but by late afternoon Wednesday dark clouds had rolled into the area. Seconds after parking my car, a torrential rain started that didn’t stop until after the concert was over. At the risk of sounding like Wonderboy, the heavy rain would give the show a moody ambiance.

After drying off I had a few drinks at the bar and enjoyed an interesting conversation with local soul and R&B album archivist Scott Wallace. He explained how the FCC is now making him prerecord his weekly radio program that he’s hosted for 22 years. I guess I can understand why Howard Stern was yanked off the air here in Rochester (although I don’t agree with it), but Scott Wallace an on–air problem? His shows on WRUR (88.5 FM) are fantastic and he’s a consummate professional. The FCC is so totally pathetic.

But I forgot all about that nonsense a few minutes later when Ulmer took the small stage wearing a large black t-shirt, jeans, and sunglasses. He sported a shaggy black beard with white streaks in it and a rubber band held long braids tied above his head. Sitting down on a low chair, he laid an electric guitar on his knee, and somewhat nervously began by saying “I’m gonna just play a little bit first.” He started to play some darkly hypnotic, desert island blues instrumentals that cascaded through the room for at least ten minutes.

Ulmer went on to perform a cool set of mostly deep gutbucket blues to a very responsive audience, and his old grainy voice was strangely soothing and genuine. Halfway through the set, he set aside his guitar and grabbed a small instrument case. As he opened it some patrons went “Uh-oh” which coerced a sheepish smile from Ulmer. He quickly snapped together a flute and played one interesting, but mysterious song before switching back to guitar. Overall it was a great little performance that had a very exciting vibe to it. Definitely worth fifteen dollars.

As I was leaving Wallace asked if I was going to see The Holmes Brothers later on. I wasn’t planning to, but when I walked outside, the rain had stopped, the sun had peeked out, and the temperature had cooled nicely, so I figured why not? I stopped home for a breather and called friends “Jimmy the washed-up surfer” and “Power Man” to see if they wanted to see the Holmes Brothers too. They were game.

The show didn’t start until 10:15 PM, so we hung out for a few drinks before heading down to the Big Tent that was set up across the street from the regal Eastman Theatre. As if on cue, the skies opened up again once we pulled into the Scio Street parking garage. Running for cover and splashing through streets of streams, we finally got to the corner across from the tent. The rain wasn’t letting up, so Jimmy made a run for it first, getting soaked and making two wrong attempts to enter the tent. After laughing and watching Jimmy finally find the entrance, Power Man and I eventually made a run for it too.

Once under the awning, we plopped down fifteen bucks apiece and walked inside looking for Jimmy. I was disappointed to find only about sixty people milling around even though the area could hold many times that. Also annoying was that The Holmes Brothers were playing way too loud for such a small audience; drink tickets had to be purchased separately from the bar, and within five songs, many people had trickled out. Not a great experience and certainly not worth the cash. I did enjoy the up-tempo blues tunes the guys were playing, however this was a classic case of a band/audience mismatch. In defense of organizers, a stormy Wednesday night didn’t help, but don’t feel bad for them as the RIJF was a smash success with reports indicating that over 55,000 spectators attended the nine-day event.

Deciding to bail, we again ran through the rain on the way to Salinger’s bar where we had a couple more drinks and I had the worst game of darts ever (somehow I managed to break the tips off of three darts). What I thought would be an early night turned into yet another one of those bleary 2:00 AM jaunts. So the Holmes Brothers show didn’t work out, but the James “Blood” Ulmer show definitely did. Not too shabby for a crummy Wednesday night in Rochester.

(Craig Curtice is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls who still can’t seem to figure out the streets and legal parking areas of Rochester.)