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Freihofer's Jazz Festival: One Great Weekend
Brubeck, near 90, is frail coming off a recent illness, but he is still focused, and his playing still evokes his halcyon days.
Saratoga Springs, New York
June 27-28, 2009
Freihofer's Jazz Festival, in its 32nd year, provided an outstanding array of music and musicians and added to its legacy—started by George Wein in 1978—in fine fettle on June 27 and 28 in the upstate New York community of Saratoga Springs.
For producer Danny Melnick, who took over for Wein when the latter sold his Festival Productions company a few years ago, it was his best lineup of jazz talent across the board at the spacious and striking Saratoga Performing Arts Center, from tried and true greats like 
George Coleman
saxophone, tenorb.1935
Gary Burton
vibraphoneb.1943
Dave Brubeck
piano1920 - 2012
Julian Lage
guitar, electric
Grace Kelly
saxophoneb.1992
Aaron Parks
drumsb.1983
Kendra Shank
vocalsb.1958
Ralph Alessi
trumpetb.1963
"Danny's a good kid and he knows what he's doing now because he worked with me for many, many years," Wein said the day before the festival began. "He was my talent buyer for years. So he's had the experience to know what to do."
With festival and concert producers worrisome about what this summer season holds because of the poor U.S. economy, Melnick can also be pleased that attendance at SPAC was up 1 percent from the year before, according to an announcement a few days after the fest.
The festival has two long days of music on two stages, and there was plenty to go around for jazz lovers. The highlight was the Kind of Blue @ 50 band, commemorating the half-century anniversary of the recording of 
Miles Davis
trumpet
1926 - 1991
Jimmy Cobb
drums
1929 - 2020
The band went through all of the album's five cuts in extended form, with trumpeter 
Wallace Roney
trumpet
1960 - 2020
Vincent Herring
saxophone, alto
b.1964
Cannonball Adderley
saxophone
1928 - 1975
Carl Allen
drums
b.1961
Javon Jackson
saxophone
b.1965
John Coltrane
saxophone
1926 - 1967
Larry Willis
piano
1942 - 2019
"Everywhere we go, we get a standing ovation," said Cobb—who looks 65, not his 80 years—backstage after the set. That held true at SPAC, where each tune had people standing. "You can't get better than that, I guess."
Another highlight goes again to Roney, who led his own band at the smaller and more intimate gazebo stage a couple of hours after playing with Cobb. He changes rhythm sections but just about always has brother 
Antoine Roney
saxophone, tenor
b.1963
Another exploring set came from Burton, whose quartet featured the dazzling 
Pat Metheny
guitar
b.1954
Steve Swallow
bass
b.1940
Antonio Sanchez
drums
b.1971
Chick Corea
piano
1941 - 2021
Keith Jarrett
piano
b.1945
"Sea Journey" has that Latin tinge Corea was commonly using years ago when he wrote it, and the soloists soaring through its changes set the tone for the set. Jarrett's "Coral" was a ballad on which Burton and Metheny were more serene, but no less expressive.
Other highlights came from youngsters Lage and Kelly.
Lage, a guitarist discovered by Burton when the former was in his teens, joined his hollow-body guitar with somewhat different instrumentation than a usual jazz group in the form of bass and cello, sax and a drummer, Tupak Mantilla, who played his set all by hand, without typical snare or tom-tom drums but rather with what appeared to be leather, or cloth-covered, drums. "Clarity," from his debut CD Sounding Point, was a sweet melding of all the voices. "Motor Minder," from the same album, featured a great duet with guitar and bassist Jorge Roeder, before the rest of the group joined. Lage has an open musical mind with a variety of genre influences, and his guitar work is crisp and clean. The band was very tight, and the give-and-take communication was spot on.
Kelly, 17, led a quintet of youngsters through a set of familiar and unfamiliar. In addition to her excellent sax, she now sings and has a pleasant voice. It's a nice addition to the act. Her vocal offering "But Life Goes On" was a pleasurable romp about getting through woes. But her sax work is ever growing and speaks volumes, as exemplified when she pulled off the vocal to "Please Send Me Someone to Love" nicely enough, but then dug in for a bluesy, sensual solo on sax. Trumpeter Jason Palmer displayed inventive melodic ideas through the set. "Summertime" had some of her best playing. But her encore, "Over the Rainbow," showed just how mature she is becoming, full of emotion and squeezing out a degree of pathos without going overboard. It was thoughtful ballad playing for one so young.
Coleman, who cut his sax teeth years ago in Memphis and toured with B.B. King when King was a puppy, played mostly jazz standards, like Freddie Hubbard's "Up Jumped Spring," Ray Noble's "Cherokee," and 
Horace Silver
piano
1928 - 2014
Ahmad Jamal
piano
1930 - 2023
Harold Mabern
piano
1936 - 2019
Brubeck's set was typical of what to expect from his gang, which included his son Danny Brubeck subbing on drums for Randy Jones. Sax man 
Bobby Militello
saxophone, alto
b.1950
Duke Ellington
piano
1899 - 1974
Billy Strayhorn
piano
1915 - 1967
Benson performed a group of 
Nat King Cole
piano and vocals
1919 - 1965
Another "star power" act was the SMV Thunder tour, with bassists 
Stanley Clarke
bass
b.1951
Marcus Miller
bass
b.1959
Victor Wooten
bass
b.1964
Singers included Shank and R&B singer Bettye LaVette. Shank had a fine band, featuring pianist 
Frank Kimbrough
piano
1956 - 2020
Abbey Lincoln
vocals
1930 - 2010
LaVette, 63—who began singing R&B at 16, but had only moderate success until a few years ago— showed a very strong and richly soulful way with a song. "You Don't Know Me," "A Change is Gonna Come," and "Little Sparrow" along with strength, emotion and style, and maybe a wisp of Tina Turner when she turned up the volume. Good stuff.
Latin music was represented by a few groups. Trumpeter 
Mark Morganelli
trumpet
b.1955
Antonio Carlos Jobim
piano
1927 - 1994
The Grammy Award-winning Spanish Harlem Jazz Orchestra (Across 110th St., 2004, Red Int./red Ink) was a high-energy, horn-and-percussion driven ensemble that had people dancing to salsa and other spirited Latin expressions. An all-star band from Berklee College of Music, La Timbistica, also added to the flavor, but with a small ensemble.
Trumpeter Alessi called his band This Against That, but there were no offerings from his CD of that name. Still, his pensive writing style, with its changing moods and different colors and textures, was a treat. He's a provocative storyteller on his instrument. And saxophonist 
Tony Malaby
saxophone, tenor
Saxophonist 
John Ellis
saxophone, tenor
b.1974
Charlie Hunter
guitar
b.1967
Mike Moreno
guitar
Combined with the relaxed, picnic setting of the annual event, the high level of music made the 2009 edition an excellent one. Watch for the 2010 version.
Photos by R.J. DeLuke
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