Elm City jazz....

The New Haven Jazz Festival was concluding its 25th year celebration Saturday night on the New Haven Green and (thanks to some VIP passes from Stevie P) Johnny Gumbo and I were among the celebrants. We already knew we were important; the passes just confirmed it. The co-headliners of the evening were TS Monk, son of jazz legend Thelonious Monk, and Jonny Lang, a young guitarist whose connection to jazz is questionable.

We astutely capture an on-street parking spot about a block northeast of the green and walk over under threatening skies. The north-south, treelined rectangle is completely filled with concert-goers of all ages on the interior ringed by food vendors of various ethnicity. We flash our passes to a helpful staff guy and are directed to a tent just to the left of the stage, where we are given wristbands (the kind that take an hour to remove)and enter an open area adjacent to a tent with refreshments/snacks available. Also not to be underestimated as a VIP perk was a nearby tent with portable toilets! TS is just about to begin so we grab a couple of India Pale Ales and sit at one of the cafe tables to watch the performance from the side of the stage. Monk is a drummer by trade and supplements it with some decent vocals. His group consists of a very good sax player, keyboards, bass. His performance this evening is called 'A Tribute to John Coltrane.' After a couple numbers, we go out to get some food, finally settling on mammoth burritos which we bring back to our VIP digs to eat while listening to the end of Monk's very enjoyable set. Good stuff.

Then the rains came, so we retreat to the tents, which still give us a great view of the stage. The crowd gets a little restless waiting through announcements and Pilot Pen Tennis promos (Lindsay Davenport and James Blake volley 25 'special' tennis balls into the crowd for free tourney tix). Meanwhile a woman starts chatting up a storm, informing me that she is a writer "for over 400 newspapers" and was brought up here from NYC to cover the Festival. She asks what I thought of TS Monk's performance. Strangely, while she had interviewed Monk at lunch, she blew off his show. She also asks if Gumbo and I are lovers. We reply that we like to think so, but she doesn't seem as amused as we are. Jonny Lang finally comes onstage and performs some guitar calisthenics which are initially impressive, but quickly become boring. So we say our goodbyes to Ms. NYC Writer and zip up I91 to Blackeyed Sallys to catch Christine Ohlman.

(top)TS Monk combo as viewed from the VIP cafe; (right) the packed crowd in front of the stage on the New Haven Green as viewed from the vendor area.