The 2009 Jazz Fest at Sacramento is over. This was the first year where we attended only the performances where and when we worked as volunteers. We had a full ride pass to 3 full days of shows and we were only obligated to volunteer for half of that. Still, we decided we'd rather spend time with kids and grandkids instead of listening to more of the same music. For one thing, they did a better job of mixing up the bands so that we got a decent selection of different sounds. Last year we had so many "All Star" bands that have to sound the same since they're all trying to "match".
Probably the most interesting performance was the "Patriotic Show" put on in our venue by the band "Night Bloomin' Jazzmen" who have a long relationship with the JazzJubilee. You've never heard the Star Spangled Banner until you've heard it played Dixieland style. And as one part of their program they played the songs of each of the armed forces, asking beforehand that each member or former member or fan of the particular armed force branch stand when their song is being played. This is not an uncommon exercise but it is uncommon for people to stand halfway up, start to go do again, back up, look around for confirmation, etc. It wasn't easy to identify all the songs.
We were the last shift which meant taking down and clearing everything away but the site chairman's family showed up, doubling our manpower and cutting the cleanup effort and time in half.
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