Jazz Stampede ends up more like a meander
The first Logan Jazz Stampede Saturday was filled with music and performers, but the one thing lacking was a stampede.
Of course, the jazz musicians Joe Sorenson brought together had to compete with Utah State University’s Homecoming football game and ballet performances in the valley.
For three hours, jazz and blues filled the Crimson Caine lyric Theatre from top to bottom.
Nivision, Taylor and Wright opened the night with two original songs that moved the audience.
The band also added songs by John Coltraine, Wayne Shroder, John Schofield and The Police to their set.
Joe Swanson, the organizer of Logan’s first jazz festival observed that there was no place or opportunity for jazz musicians to get together in the valley so he decided, being a musician himself, that he would take matters into his own hands.
“I am losing this fight badly, too,” Swanson said.
He took a bet on counting that there was a jazz crowd in Logan, but with more than 26,000 people pulled to the Homecoming game, it was hard to compete with.
About 75 patrons showed up at the theater. Swanson said next year they will hold the festival in a bar or tavern that would let them play for free. Renting the theater for only 75 people turned out to be a big financial burden, he said.
Swanson said the festival wasn’t a total failure however; there was a very good, responsive crowd for the Lightwood Duo that played at the Straw Ibis coffee house.
The festival also featured performances by The Jackson Evans Quartet at The White Owl Bar, William Pollett at Chapter Two Books, the Valley Dance Ensemble performed in front of the Ellen Eccles Theatre, and The Rock Bottom Blues Revue was in front of the Lyric Theatre most of the afternoon.
The headliners of the festival were The Joe McQueen All Stars featuring Larry Smith, who played songs such as “Tenderly,” “Oh Georgia,” “Girl for Impanima,” a sax duo called “Blues Up and Down,” “Undecided,” “These Foolish Things Remind Me of You,” “September in the Rain” and “What is This Thing Called Love.”
-kassrobison@cc.usu.edu