Jazz Aspen Snowmass June Experience
Downtown Aspen
Aspen, Colorado
June 22-24, 2023

Jazz Aspen Snowmass (JAS) has been around as a concept for a few decades now. The format and specific locations have changed over the years, but the basic idea remains the same: go to a beautiful mountain location and dig some great music. Mountains and music are a combination that works.

But then, there's the question of the kind of music. Despite having the word "Jazz" in its name, Jazz Aspen Snowmass isn't always about jazz. In fact, the Labor Day Weekend edition of JAS 2023 has virtually no jazz. But only purists worry about stuff like that. The rest of us just check the lineup and if it works: Go!

The fact that a music festival featuring no jazz insists on keeping the word "jazz" in its name, just goes to show that the coolness factor of that word and the whole concept of jazz scores at least an eleven on a scale of one to ten. It's a concept that even those who don't play or even listen to jazz want to be associated with.

The JAS "June Experience" unequivocally had jazz along with many of its cousins and in-laws and adopted children. The featured bands played straight ahead jazz, Latin jazz, afro-beat, blues and plenty of funk. Sometimes JAS is held at the Snowmass rodeo grounds. (Yes, rodeo, pardner. This is still the West no matter how cosmopolitan the rich folks want to make Aspen.) Those events often turn the rodeo area into festival grounds with tents for the performers (although whether the music is inside a tent or outside is one of those things that's evolved over the years) with food and merch vendors in abundance.

In contrast, the June experience this year was held throughout downtown Aspen at 13 different venues, all within a few blocks' walking distance of each other. Famous Aspen nightclub Belly Up hosted events each of the three nights. Another venue was the historic Wheeler Opera House, a 19th Century theater from Aspen's glorious silver mining days. Other venues were restaurants, bars and coffee shops with make-shift stages set up in a corner resulting in a variety of sound quality. Some venues were quite tight, putting the audience almost in the band's lap. But that variety of music and venues and the ability to get close to the performers was a big part of the fun. That, and the uniform high quality of the bands. Multiple bands played at different venues simultaneously requiring careful planning to see the acts one was interested in. Trade-offs were inevitable and it was impossible to see them all.

Aspen, being Aspen, has endless opportunities for conspicuous consumption and flaunting of wealth. Whether it's owning a fourth or fifth home that exceeds 10,000 square feet, or the size of the private jet depositing the well-heeled at the local airport, or the slamming of that $600 cocktail, or driving an exotic car with extra chrome, the moneyed class shows it off. To cater to that mindset (and those bank accounts), JAS offered VIP tickets for multiples over the general admission price. VIPs also got special meals and exclusive performances in their own tent. And the choicest seats at the other venues were reserved for them, always in front of the proletariat. But sometimes, it didn't work out. See, Big Sam, below.

Thursday, June 22, 2023

It was a New Orleans funk throw-down to start the JAS June festival. Two iconic NOLA acts got things rolling Thursday night.

Big Sam's Funky Nation

Big Sam doesn't really play a concert, he throws a party. You can't go to a BSFN performance and expect to sit in your seat and be entertained. No, you'll be part of the party. You'll be expected to dance (the whole time), clap and sing along, sometimes into the microphone that Big Sam puts in front of you on one of his many excursions into the crowd.