Blues & Jazz Festival 2003

The 11th Annual Erie Art Museum Blues and Jazz Festival

The Erie Art Museum’s 11th Annual Blues & Jazz Festival was held at Frontier Park, August 2 & 3, 2003. The Festival opened at noon on Saturday with an act aimed specifically at children, Sadie Green Sales Jug Band. In addition to the traditional guitar, banjo, clarinet and saxophone, Sadie members Timothy Walker and David Driskell also performed on musical saw, washboard, jugs, washtub bass and "tuned six-pack". Following the Jug Band performance, kids were invited to participate in a free hands-on workshop, and then later joined the band for a reprise performance. Kids’ hands-on activities, staffed by museum staff and volunteers, were available continuously throughout the Festival.

At two p.m. Saturday some of the region’s finest musicians joined J.D. Hopkins & the Sons of Rhythm for a set of original and improvised jazz performances. Influences from Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and ethnic music from all over the globe were seamlessly blended in a laid-back, percussion driven jam perfectly matched to a sunny summer afternoon.

Things heated up at four p.m. as Alfred Castiglia brought his blues band to the Festival stage. Nurtured in the melting pot of Miami, Castiglia cut his blues teeth playing nights and weekends in the clubs of south Florida. He broke into the blues mainstream as lead guitarist and vocalist with Junior Wells, performing all over the Europe and North America before Junior’s untimely death in 1998. Since then he has performed with a host of other Chicago blues artists, including Pinetop Perkins, Sugar Blue, Billy Boy Arnold and Eddy Clearwater. Castiglia stomps, shouts and strums the blues with an intensity which lit up the park in mid-afternoon.

Bluesman Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater brought things to the boiling point with his own hot show at 6 p.m. featuring his rocking, personal version of the Chicago blues. Known for a stylistic range which extends from original, deep, melancholic blues to good-natured party music, Clearwater is one of the last great Chicago blues legends. He got his name from Jump Jackson as a wordplay on Muddy Waters, and he got his start with Magic Sam, but his sound is all his own. The New York Times calls Eddy Clearwater "…the sort of exuberant entertainer who can turn a concert into a party."

Just to prove that things can still get hotter even when they are already boiling, Saturday at the Erie Art Museum Blues & Jazz Festival wrapped up with an appearance by one of the greatest soul blues showmen of all time, Bobby Rush, direct from Jackson, Mississippi. Voted "Best Live Performer" four times in the Living Blues magazine Critics Choice Award and twice in Real Blues magazine, Bobby Rush has been a mainstay of the Southern Blues Circuit for over 40 years. Some of the greatest blues artists of the second half of the 20th century have gotten their start in Bobby’s band, including Freddy King, Luther Allison, Eddie Boyd and Luther "Guitar Jr." Johnson. Jim DeKoster of Living Blues says, "…good as Rush is on record, it’s his stage show that really sets him apart. If he ever comes your way, don’t dare miss him."

Sunday kicked off with one of the best traditional jazz ensembles performing today, Gene Mayl’s Dixieland Rhythm Kings. Hailed by Time Magazine as the upholders of "the tradition of righteous Jazz", the Dixieland Rhythm Kings are one of the most traveled and widely heard jazz groups of all time. They have toured for over 30 years, performing hundreds of concerts and festivals, and have recorded 26 albums on 14 different labels. The Kings were the first non-New Orleans group to appear at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Jazz vocalists performed throughout the day on Sunday, beginning at 2 p.m. with Kaylé Brecher. The former Erieite, now based in Philadelphia, was accompanied in a program of original compositions and standards with an all star Erie ensemble.

At 4 p.m., Pittsburgh-based ensemble Salsamba served up an exciting recipe of American jazz with spicy rhythms from Cuba, Brazil, and the Caribbean. The quintet’s jazz repertoire is interlaced with mambos, bombas, sambas and bossa novas.

Doug Wamble pulls together strains of Louis Armstrong, Hank Williams, Robert Johnson and Ornette Coleman, all blended through his acoustic guitar into a unique style in which he renders a wide range of original compositions. Starting out as an accompanist to vocalists like Cassandra Wilson (he appears on Traveling Miles) and Madeleine Peyroux, and as a member of Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra, Wamble was encouraged by Wynton Marsalis and others to become a vocalist himself. His 6 p.m. performance included selections from his recently released CD Country Libations, on Marsalis Music.

Rising star René Marie took jazz vocals to new heights in the closing performance at 8 p.m. on Sunday. An electrifying, original performer, René subtly transforms familiar melodies into wholly new experiences, and supplements them with songs of her own composition that leave audiences asking for more. René took a long hiatus from her musical career to raise a family, and she has clearly proven that it’s possible to develop incredible chops singing lullabies and crooning in the kitchen. René has released four CDs to increasing critical acclaim. Tom Phillips of Jazz News magazine gives her a "4-star rating" and Richmond Times critic Matt Mathis says, "Most vocalists seek to imitate instruments. René proves the human voice is the standard by which instruments were created."

René Marie, Kaylé Brecher and members of Salsamba presented a series of jazz workshops for musicians and fans throughout the day on Sunday at the McCain Pavilion and the gazebo at LEAF (Lake Erie Arboretum at Frontier). Arboretum tours were also on tap.

Sponsors for the year’s Festival included the Erie Community Foundation, Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, JazzErie, Erie Insurance, Spiegel Management, RentWay, Hilbert Industries Partnership, Times Publishing Company, WQLN Public Broadcasting of NW Pennsylvania, Erie Arts Endowment of the Arts Council of Erie, Avalon Hotel, Icon Screenprinting, Action Printing, Penelec, St. Vincent Foundation, City of Erie, Pepsi, Bay Harbour Electric, Erie Airport Authority, Stargate, Icon Screenprinting, Erie Housing Authority, Classy 100 and Z 102.3FM. The Festival logo was designed by Tom Tucker.