Mother Mary and Joseph!

Here is a Rhapsody playlist made up of most of the artists who played at the Syracuse Jazzfest this past weekend. Unfortunately, there is nothing Rhapvailable from The Ed Palermo Big Band who did a tribute to Frank Zappa (whose music also is no longer available on Rhapsody, sadly.) The Zappa tribute was the highlight of the weekend for me; Palermo is a self-described "Zappa freak" and it was so much fun to watch him perform. You can really tell he loves what he is doing. A bonus was the presence of Zappa band member Napoleon Murphy Brock who performed with Palermo's band. I really love "Inca Roads" and to see it performed live with Brock who filled in for Ike Willis on vocals and Zappa's vocals on some of the other songs was about the closet thing to a musical dream come true I have experienced in quite a while if not ever.
Drummer Brian Melvin performed with a group called Beatlejazz who played exactly what you might think from the name of the group; highlights were George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" that started with an amazing tabla solo, "Piggies," another Harrison number that translates surprisingly well to a jazz piece and their opening number, a slinky "Come Together." Melvin dedicated "All Things Must Pass" to his late friend Jaco Pastorius who, along with Dave Brubeck were the two artists who received festival dedications this year.
I was able to find two of the local festival performers on Rhapsody. Nancy Kelly is originally from Rochester and is an amazing vocalist and skat singer with excellent stage presence who has played everywhere, is well known in Jazz circles (according to her website she won the Downbeat Magazine readers poll "best female jazz vocalist" two years in a row) and is a local treasure. She is playing about 20 minutes away from my house on my birthday and I can't wait.
The other local artist I found on Rhapsody was Phil Klein. Klein is a retired music teacher at the festival's current site, Onondaga Community College, and is a great keyboardist and a really funny guy. Both Klein and Kelly played mostly standards and both were lots of fun.
There were bigger names at the festival too including the aforementioned Dave Brubeck with the current version of his quartet, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Aretha Franklin, Mose Allison, Chico Hamilton, "Toots" Theilemans, Howard Johnson, Harri Stojka and Hiram Bullock as well as many high school jazz bands and local favorites Los Blancos and the State Street Band.