City
of Glendale Gibson Jazz and Blues Festival -
April 12-13, 2008
Review and Photos By Rob Paullin
Yes, Virginia, there is a blues festival in the
Sonora Desert. It’s called the City of Glendale Gibson
Guitar Jazz
and Blues Festival, and Blues Blast was there for much of the 25th
anniversary event this past weekend in suburban Phoenix, Arizona.
The mid-April weather—between what passes for
winter in the Valley of the Sun and the upcoming monsoon and heat
season—was perfect for the two day, two stage event in what the
locals describe as “historic downtown Glendale.” “Historic”
apparently is in the eye and mind of the beholder as Glendale is
only a few dozen years old, but the city has built a beautiful
outdoor amphitheater combined into the steps of a
sunken entrance to
one of the public buildings included in their downtown square and
park. Several nice restaurants surround the square and trees
abound, so even the dry heat of an Arizona spring was no problem for
the many thousands of blues and jazz fans--and the curious--who
attended. With a quarter century of experience at this, the
organizers have learned how to do it right.
And that includes knowing how to blend a
perfect mix of national touring blues acts like Tommy Castro and
Roomful of Blues, with an eclectic menu of new and established
home-grown
Arizona-based performers. The line-up included Arizona
Blues Hall of Fame inductees Hans Olson, Big Pete Peterson, and Bob
Corritore, among the dozen-plus others scheduled to appear on the
blues stage.
We’ll focus on a couple of the Arizona acts to
help tell the story of the Glendale Gibson Jazz and Blues
Festival. And since Blues Blast focuses on, well, the blues, our
apologies to the many fine jazz performers who graced the second
stage in downtown Glendale.
Big Daddy D Darryl Portas and his Dynamites
were among the first to catch the Blues Blast’s roving eye, with
Anton Teschner belting out some sold sax work together with Steven
Ayres on bass and Drew Hall on backing guitar, all in front of
Carlos Jones on drums. The highlight was when vocalist and
guitarist Big Daddy D stepped off the stage to play slide guitar
with the obligatory beer bottle, then even a lawn chair and finally
one of those old fashioned record albums. This performance drew the
audience in for the Prescott, Arizona, based band, and helped set
the stage for nightfall and eventually, headliner Tommy Castro.
It also made for a tough act to follow for
Phoenix-based all-girl blues band, Sistah Blue. But the 13-year
Phoenix blues veterans followed brilliantly, behind the searing
harmonica work of Rochelle Raya, the stand-out instrumental stylings
of guitarist and song-writer Nancy Dalessandro, the driving rhythms
of drummer Janet Daniels and the soulful vocals of Lila Sherman.
The songs—mostly written by Arizona Blues Hall of Famer Dalessadro—and
the performance, had the band’s large local fan base up on their
feet and dancing for the entire set. And a sad note for our
Arizona Blues Blast readers: Sistah Blue is retiring after hundreds
of performances and several CD’s over their dozen-plus years: Their
last public performance will be May 22 at Phoenix’ Rhythm Room, if
you want to say “Good bye and good luck.”
We’ll
note one other performance in brief, not because they were not
good—they were—but because they are from San Francisco and not the
Phoenix area. That’s Mark Hummel and The Blues Survivors.
The
highlight of their show was their original song, “The Big Easy Ain’t
Easy No More,” a protest song over the way the current
administration is dealing with the post Katrina crisis in New
Orleans. Regrettably, the powerful song drew only a smattering of
polite applause from the huge audience. I’ll say no more on that….
With 25 years of experience, the promoters and
organizers of the Glendale Gibson Jazz and Blues festival know how
to do it right! Put it on your list for next spring in the Valley
of the Sun. And as if you needed any more incentives to attend next
April….it’s FREE!!!
Two Lone Peak bottles up for the Glendale
Gibson Jazz and Blues Festival!
Reviewer,
journalist and educator Rob Paullin has worked and sampled the blues
everywhere from Chicago, New Orleans and Memphis to Kyiv, Beijing
and Venice.
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