Festival boss Charlie Fishman reports that there’s been a dispute with the Ellington family over the rights to use the name of District jazz’s favorite son. Henceforth, then, it shall be known as the DC Jazz Festival, and shall be accorded all rights and privileges commensurate with that name.

It is notable, however, that festivals with the names of famous musicians attached have tended to be second-tier festivals, held in fifth-tier cities. Who, after all, could forget the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Moscow, Idaho; the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival in Wilmington, Delaware; or the headline-grabbing Bix Beiderbecke Jazz Festival in bustling Davenport, Iowa?

By contrast, the big-time fests — Newport Jazz Festival, Chicago Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, Portland Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival — are all named after the cities that host them.

So let’s call this name change a promotion, shall we?

It also meant a very heavy reliance, particularly in the first half of the fest, on local jazz musicians—about which I heard a few grumbles, to the tune of “So much of it is gigs that happen every week anyway! Shouldn’t a festival be about special events?”

The local focus should get a pass. The budget difficulties were pretty big for the festival this year; besides, D.C.’s jazz musicians need all the extra publicity they can get. If there was a problem with the festival, it was the 11-day duration—too long. The cushioning of the schedule with local musicians might not have been necessary if there wasn’t so much space to fill.

An event of such length needs to justify that length with its programming. The forthcoming Montreal Jazz Festival is 13 days long and that’s the largest in the world, with at least two major artists performing every day; Umbria Jazz, the most important jazz festival in Europe, is 10 days and again has a major artist playing on each.

By contrast, two days of this year’s Ellington Festival had only one event, period — the free concerts at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, which are already available 365 days a year.

There are ways to do something special with local musicians so they’re in a festival’s context. The performances this year at the Phillips Collection were well programmed and clever (though there’s no reason that Phillips couldn’t do this themselves at any time of year), and trumpeter Thad Wilson and a group of his colleagues made an exemplary contribution to the New Orleans theme, playing a Louis Armstrong tribute at Bohemian Caverns last weekend. But those could be scheduled in a smallter time window, too.

Don’t get me wrong–almost every performance I saw was fantastic, as I communicated here. I love the local D.C. scene and the national and international jazz scenes. I had fun. And I did enjoy the expansion of “Jazz at the National Mall” to two full days of performance. It was just tough, as a spectator, to sustain.

It’s entirely possible that future festivals, with restored financial security, will justify that 11-day span that will now be permanent on the District’s calendar. So consider that an official “wait and see.” Meantime, I’m exhausted.

1:00 PM
It was immediately clear that the Rebirth Brass Band would be a tough act to follow. Their lineup of three trumpets, tenor sax, trombone, sousaphone, and two drummers were working out their theme song, “Feel Like Funkin’ It Up,” demonstrating rather handily that hardcore funk is not so far removed from New Orleans traditional jazz and marching band styles. They then threw rock & roll into that same mix, making short work of The Rolling Stones classic “It’s All Over Now.”

Watching them, however, the most obvious continuum for the Rebirth Brass Band was that of D.C.’s own go-go scene. The riffs, the party chants, the aggressive rhythms were all there. The audience sensed it too: before the end of the set, the area in front of the stage was filled with men and women holding aloft umbrellas and blowing whistles, dancing and shuffling to their heart’s content. Rebirth was the party band of the day.

2:20 PM
Announcer Willard Jenkins informed us that the Bob French Original Tuxedo Jazz Band had been founded in 1910 and in continuous operation since then. Ninety-nine years may indeed be long enough to leach the vitality out of music; the OTJB was unquestionably chopsy and polished, but missing a certain pizazz and energy that Dr. Michael White and the Original Liberty Jazz Band had in spades. They also had some sound problems, with clarinetist Orange Kelly inaudible when not soloing and pianist Paul Longstreth had microphone problems when trying to sing.

What the OTJB did have, though, was color–mainly in the persons of leader-drummer French and trombonist Frederick Lonzo. For Lonzo’s big feature “On the Back Porch,” he showed off a long descending slur—long, as in several minutes (surely it was circular-breathed) — with French urging him “Lower!” and “G’on down!” until Lonzo was actually well below the bass register. Then Lonzo began talk-singing, with plenty of double entendres (”when that big ol’ moon is shinin’…I’ll show you that big ol’ moon!” he shouted, grabbing his ass), and finished with another long note, this time sung, and with a short breath—but Lonzo took it by spinning around and pretending that he was still singing, but we couldn’t hear him.

Then came a real singer: Juanita Brooks, who sang “Bye Bye Blackbird” in a smokey, faintly choked voice that hurt her vocal range a bit but was nonetheless silky-smooth in delivery. She apologized for this and for her casual attire (she’d been evicted from her hotel that morning, she explained) before launching a soft, emotional take on “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?” A girl sitting next to me who introduced herself as Erin St. Pierre, a New Orleanian and LSU alum who shouted merrily at any reference to the Crescent City, turned to her friends after the song and said “Can I go home now?”

3:35 PM
He was born in Macomb, Mississippi, but Little Freddie King has been a New Orleans bluesman since the ’50s. His sound is actually heavily rock-influenced, urban and slick, but with a fantastic electric harmonica by Bobby Louis Di Tullio Jr.. King, on guitar, divided the set between instrumentals and vocals on blues from all over the map: Mississippi, Chicago, Kansas City. A fellow concert watcher pointed out the rare commodity that King actually played guitar with his fingers.

The selection of songs was excellent, including “Bus Station Blues” and an extended, completely unique version of John Lee Hooker’s anthem “Boogie Chillun.” Even more unique, however, was the original “Feed That Chicken Shuck That Corn”: guitar and harmonica both imitated squawking chickens and King crowed like a rooster as he sang of his father putting him to work as a child on the farm. Deep into the song, he announced “Now it’s time to do the chicken dance!” and began working his legs around his guitar like Chuck Berry.

It was so fantastic that it even overshadowed the elderly bluesman’s brief rendition of “Get Up, I Feel Like Being A Sex Machine.”

5:00 PM
Banjoist Don Vappie’s band, the Creole Jazz Serenaders, was also traditional New Orleans jazz but markedly different in sound. Vappie’s was a real orchestra, finding its core in the sounds of Fletcher Henderson and other proto-big bands. (The drummer, Ocie Davis, actually looked eerily like Fletcher Henderson.) They had an elegant sound that was nonetheless uproarious fun. They managed to turn Hank Williams‘ “Bucket’s Got A Hole In It” into a sexy, bellyrubbin’ slow dance, with tenor saxophonist Ray Moore contributing two extraordinary choruses: the first a Lester Young pastiche, the second one of the greasiest R&B solos imaginable.

The remainder of the set was all traditional and early jazz and Creole music, featuring the Creole traditional “Salle Dames, Bon Jour” done to a groove that evoked the original Latin jazz tune, “The Peanut Vendor.” This tune also featured a Creole singalong, with Vappie calling out French phrases for the audience to repeat, and then a break into easy swing for the first time. Pianist Larry Sieberth also shone, giving a truly gutbucket solo on “Buddy Bolden Blues,” and bassist Mark Brooks emanated surprisingly pure funk on the shouting “Long Gal in a Short Dress.” Good stuff, and endearingly different.

6:25 PM
Terence Blanchard threw a change-up. That the trumpeter and his band would be performing his beautiful, somber 2007 album A Tale of God’s Will: Requiem for Katrina was so well established that it was announced at the press junket for last year’s festival. But Blanchard has a new album coming out in August called Choices (Concord Jazz), and that was where his energies were focused. “All of the music you’ll hear tonight is from that album,” he announced from the stage.

Blanchard didn’t announce titles, but he explained that the album’s concept is “How life is all about the choices we make, every second of every day,” and that it would feature spoken-word performance by Dr. Cornell West. West’s words were from a recorded conversation with Blanchard, and appeared throughout the stellar performance. Blanchard and tenor saxophonist Brice Winston played passionately, together and in solo, and the rhythm section was uncanny in its ability to respond to and even anticipate the front line. Fabian Alamazan played piano with great classical touches, but without every sacrificing the jazz flair, while bassist Michael Olatuja (subbing for Blanchard’s regular bass player Matt Brewer) was deceptive in his timekeeping; his changes of course to follow Blanchard and Winston were so subtle as to be barely noticeable. As for Kendrick Scott, he remains perhaps the drummer of his generation, graceful and supple with nonstop virtuosic ability.

I can’t wait for this album to come out.

The son of New Orleans jazz polymath Kidd, trumpeter Marlon Jordan works largely in mainstream post-bop — a glut of which has been heard by this second weekend of the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival. But Jordan rescued it from ennui at Twins Jazz Friday night with some of the most distinctive stylings the fest has had so far.

Armed with pianist Allyn Johnson, drummer Aaron Walker, and a bassist whose name even Jordan couldn’t tell me (it was their first time playing together, he apologized), the trumpeter began inauspiciously enough with a program of jazz standards. But by the beginning of his second tune, Ellington and Juan Tizol’s “Caravan,” Jordan had well established his arsenal of high-pitched, triple-tongued squeals that weren’t just for accent or surprise: he’d make long phrases and even full choruses out of them. But he’d also balance them out with aggressive low-reaching growls that called to mind Bubber Miley in the early Ellington orchestra.

These sounds continued through a full set of classics from “What Is This Thing Called Love” to Coltrane’s “Impressions” to a slam-dunk reading of “Cherokee,” with Jordan also running sonically everywhere in between. Literally everywhere: his horn style was manic, busy, and intense; Jordan himself often looked like he was fighting the trumpet off him, jerking it in wide arcs in front of him and raising it to the ceiling for his high squeals.

The quartet was an incredible asset, too. Johnson, brilliant and flashy as always, worked glorious block chords and runaway right-hand melodies, also pulling a neat new trick in having the left hand doubling the right about three octaves down on “What Is This Thing Called Love.” Walker was a spectacular time keeper with great force on the rides and singular grasp of percussive color: he even played hand-drum on the snare during “Caravan.” It’s hard to know what to make of the bassist, though; his buzzy, clipped sound wasn’t quite the finesse that one expects in jazz, but he more than made up for it with his ear for chords and his melodic sense on solos.

The indisputable highlight was a slow, subtle take on Wayne Shorter’s classic “Footprints,” about two-thirds of the way through the set; for once Jordan kept great space in his solo phrases, and concentrated on thoughtful lyricism only occasionally punctuated by bursts of adrenaline. Johnson and Walker did their best work here, too, Johnson with a rolling, pacific piano line that Walker supported with atmospheric cymbal work, and the bassist supplied an impressive solo that was slow and plodding, but also surefooted and clever.

The indisputable lowlight, however, was the four people at the front table who were telling loud stories with squawking laughter all through the set; not only would they not shut up no matter how many of us politely asked them to, but they would simply raise their voices when the volume of the music increased. Twins remains one of the best jazz clubs in DC, but their audiences aren’t winning any awards.

Much fun as Yamomanem was, what would a jazz festival with a “Celebrating New Orleans” theme be without a real-deal traditional New Orleans jazz band? Fortunately, Dr. Michael White was at the French Embassy Wednesday night to keep anyone from having to answer that question.

White is a professor of New Orleans music and culture (and, apparently, Spanish) at New Orleans’ Xavier University, but being a scholar of the music goes hand-in-hand with understanding that there’s no place in it for scholarly sterility. So White, in his other guise as a clarinet player, formed his 7-piece Original Liberty Jazz Band to play the music with that sense of authenticity that necessarily includes fun, spirit, and the culture of African-American New Orleans. That’s how we got songs with titles like “Shake It and Break It” and “Boogaloosa Strut” (the band’s first two songs) in the first place, and how the OLJB could craft originals like “Come Together Sunday Morning.”

And, of course, it comes with the great sound of New Orleans polyphony, with White, trombonist Lucien Barbarin, and trumpeter George Stafford—who also sings with an unpolished but smooth and pleasant voice. Each player also turned in folksy solos, by and large embellishments of the written themes; that’s far from a bad thing, as White’s stunning reworking of “Summertime” proved.

For all its raucousness, though, it was curious to note how subtle the rhythm section was: the bass is supposed to be rarely noticed, and Kerry Lewis was indeed subliminal…but so was drummer Herman Lebeaux, who stuck mainly with a rolling “big-four” accent once every measure. He and Lewis each took one short solo, but for the most part stayed out of the way and let pianist Steven Pistorius and banjo player Detroit Brooks take the rhythm spotlight. Mostly Pistorius, who took dancing melodic solos while Brooks largely stuck to strumming chords in his.

Nonetheless, the polyphonic level took a huge boost near the end of “Come Together Sunday Morning” when a clarinet suddenly sounded from the back of the embassy’s auditorium, and shuffling up the aisles came clarinet legend/DEJF artistic director Paquito d’Rivera. He joined the band on Ellington’s “Black and Tan Fantasy” and the original “Gypsy Second Line,” dueling with White on their axes at the close of the latter. It was a thrilling reminder of how two clarinetists can sound like two different instruments: White played low and riffy, in staccato rhythms, while d’Rivera favored high glissandi and emotional cries.

It was at that point that I realized that there were no music stands on the stage. Just like the real traditional stuff, White and the OLJB played entirely from memory, by ear, and using their imaginations. Even the most celebrated modern jazz improvisers often use chord charts to give structure to their solos, and these guys didn’t need them. That’s a mean feat—and a reason in and of itself why early jazz remains a tradition worth continuing, and why New Orleans remains so vital to American culture.

Traditional jazz has become associated with corny trappings like straw hats—which meant that the yachting caps worn Tuesday night by four of the six members of Yamomanem was a bad sign indeed. But it was a ruse: traditional New Orleans jazz is the band’s foundation, but they gleefully subvert it.

Lord knows Jelly Roll Morton never had an electric guitar, let alone the kind that Steven Walker used to let loose the funky licks of the band’s (unnamed) second tune; nor did anyone in jazz of any genre (okay, maybe Anthony Braxton) play the sousaphone, the big-ass tuba that wraps around the player’s body. But Monty Montgomery does, and he uses it to lead the band through Dixieland melodies (instrumental and vocal), Caribbean dance tunes, and swing-era standards like “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone.”

But the band did always return to that foundation of New Orleans polyphony, with joyful interplay between clarinet (Henning Hoehne), tenor saxophone (Megan Nortrup), and trombone (Brian Priebe). And novel though they were, the sousaphone and guitar did often play the usual roles of the tuba and banjo, respectively, in the trad style. And most importantly, it was fun. That may be why the band stuck almost exclusively (save once) to fast numbers. For their finale, they actually put slow vs. fast to an audience vote, but when applause was evenly divided (”This country cannot agree on ANYTHING!” Montgomery teased), a fast one it was—the legendary “Tiger Rag,” no less, and at a blinding velocity that made it that much better—before marching off the stage, through the aisles, and out the door in a classic Mardi Gras parade formation.

So it wasn’t strictly authentic New Orleans trad … but it wasn’t corny New Orleans trad, either. And really, that’s a lot better—in this case, a blast.

Yes, they’ve got all the trappings: ska, reggae, and funk grooves; furiously strummed acoustic guitars; the vocalist with the deep, earthy voice; the loud, chopsy drummer; the ’70s musical touchstones. If you ever went to H.O.R.D.E. Festival, you’ve probably seen a dozen bands just like them.

“We’re gonna mix it up,” singer/guitarist Dave Shaw promised as they began their set at the Millennium Stage Monday evening. “Some rock, some jazz, some reggae.” The jazz quotient consisted in its entirety of one chopsy saxophone solo from their guest saxophonist (whose name was indecipherable from the audience, and not listed in the program). The remainder of the muisic was middle-of-the-road “modern rock” that alternated between basic rock backbeat, whiteboy funk, ska, and reggae. Certainly Shaw made the most out of his “rootsy” voice, which falls somewhere on the spectrum between B.B. King and Dave Matthews, and bassist George Gekas did his best to exhibit some personality in a pinstripe sport coat, purple t-shirt, cutoff shorts, mohawk, and pink plastic sunglasses. The audience seemed to enjoy it, although a significant portion (who were apparently expecting jazz, or at least jazziness) left within three songs.

It’s bad music journalism to spend too much time comparing a band to other bands, but the Revivalists’ pastiches were too manifold not too notice. Matthews, Third Eye Blind, Rusted Root, Leftover Salmon, Madness…and, just when I had sworn to myself that I wasn’t going to mention The Allman Brothers, guitarist Zach Feinberg stole, verbatim, a lick from “Blue Sky.” Alas.

But hey, at least it was free….

The Symposium out of the way, the concert commenced: DC drummer, composer, and bandleader Nasar Abadey was premiering his three-part Diamond in the Rough Suite with a 12-member Supernova Chamber Orchestra. Included in the ensemble was a full string quartet — this was Abadey’s first time writing for strings, he explained: “But be aware that it’s a lifelong dream in terms of orchestration, and it’s really a lifetime’s work.”

The first section, “Eternal Surrender,” was a slow, lyrical melody that began with a short intro on the strings, then segued into thematic statements on trumpet (Donvonte McCoy), alto saxophone (Joe Ford), and trombone (Reginald Cyntje), first solo and then together, with the strings (violinists Waymon McCoy and Michele Ruiz, violaist Jonathan Jones, and cellist Denna Purdie) comping behind them all the way. Each horn player then took gorgeous and distinctive, and very long, improvised solos: McCoy sounding honeyed and gorgeous; Ford full-bodied, with a slight honk; and Cyntje delicate but intense. Pianist Richard Doron Johnson topped them all with a lithe, sweet solo before heading back into ensemble playing and a quick closing solo from bassist James King. Both group and solo passages, however, revealed a major problem with the performance: The accompanying arrangements on the strings were barely audible during the solos, and completely so behind the ensemble. And while the written section of “Eternal Surrender” was unquestionably lovely, it was perhaps the least memorable of the suite.

The most memorable part was the second, “Sacred Space,” whose title Abadey explained by analogizing Superman and his sacred space, the Fortress of Solitude. The strings again opened on a very slow waltz, violins and viola playing a luscious tune against Purdie’s plucked cello background. On Abadey’s 3-count, however, the strings fell away; King picked up the cello part on his bass, with Johnson comping on piano, and soon the horns entered playing what had been the violin/viola melody. This time Ford had the meatiest and most satisfying solo, playing his alto in the tenor register; McCoy’s was delicate, and also the most organic and cohesive—at times impossible to tell that he wasn’t sight-reading; Cyntje’s was the sweetest, with his flowing legato phrasing alternating with high, fast intensity and loud growls. With this movement, the crispness of the rhythm section showed through: as he was Friday at Bohemian Caverns, King was consistently high-quality, and Abadey was doing remarkable things with lines on the snare, hi-hat, and ride cymbal. “Sacred Space” was incredibly moving, and even more incredibly catchy. After its final note from the strings faded away, the person sitting behind me kept whistling the tune through Abadey’s spoken interlude.

Part three, “Diamond in the Rough,” which Abadey called “the flagship” of the suite, was a kicky, danceable piece with a salsa groove, this time featuring flautist Jamal Brown and Abadey’s son Kush on percussion. Brown set the pace for all of the frontliners’ solos after him: relaxed, rhythmically in the pocket, melodically anecdotal, singsong, and carefully paced. The wellworn phrase is “telling a story,” and each successive horn continued the story where the last left off (although Ford’s sheets-of-sound approach was perhaps overlong). Kush Abadey was yet a particular standout with his percussive colors on cowbell and mounted tom-toms, and his father launched into his stunning first solo driven by spectacular kicks on the bass drum. But the string sections also finally came off with a completely audible and outstanding part.

The close of the movement, and the suite, merited a tremendous standing ovation, with Abadey bidding adieu with an important piece of advice. “As you drive home, just remember that the life you save may be the drummer’s.”

Diamond in the Rough Suite was impeccably composed and, for the most part, magnificently played; Abadey chose his ensemble well, and arranged for them even better, and the music has great beauty and merits serious attention and analysis. It was not without flaws, though. The inaudibility of the strings (which, in fairness, was likely due more to the theater’s acoustics than Abadey’s composition or arrangements) made them seem superfluous…but so did much of what could be heard; it was beautifully written and performed, but (with the notable exception of “Diamond in the Rough”) frequently seemed tacked on and even redundant. Abadey did give the caveat that this was his first time writing for them, and told an anecdote about Paquito d’Rivera admitting that it took him 30 years to figure out what to do with strings. Perhaps this was a cautionary tale.

Abadey’s spoken interludes were also very, very long; between movements two and three, he introduced the entire band and told stories of meeting and working with them. It was great for establishing rapport with the audience, but any cohesion between the sections of the suite were lost in the distance separating them.

Abadey promises that The Diamond in the Rough Suite will appear on his next album — without the strings. It will be interesting to hear how this works in comparison to last night’s concert performance, but more to the point it will be a pleasure to hear it again.

The main event on the program was the premiere of Nasar Abadey’s “Diamond in the Rough Suite,” but the opening act was a panel symposium on “Technique vs. the Blues – Jazz on the Auction Block,” moderated by jazz journalist and producer Willard Jenkins. He called on panelists to address two questions: What, in your view, is the health of the music from a playing perspective? And, as jazz musicians develop across the globe—many of them trained in the U.S.—they have filtered the music through their own cultural lens; does that remove the music from its roots, and is that a bad thing?

The answer to both questions, said flautist, composer, and educator Brother Ah, is not that European jazz is diluting American roots, but that jazz has been overtaken by the sterility of academia. “The ingredient of the aural tradition in the music is decaying,” he said. “Musicians are learning purely in the classroom, and not so much by working with and listening to the masters—and seeing the rituals backstage that musicians engage in. And with losing the ritualism, jazz is also losing its spirit.”

Poet and scholar A.B. Spellman agreed. “There are more jazz musicians playing well today, than ever before,” he said. “But I also find the music they make to be less itneresting. I suspect that the problem is a class change in the music—the ghetto genius that once crafted the best jazz is now lost to it.” Spellman trusts that “ghetto genius” more than the jazz of the middle class, he noted.

Bill Brower, a renowned writer, producer, and jazz scholar, added that the social component that once characterized jazz has gone. “We used to dance in the aisles at [New York's] Apollo Theater,” he said. “At [D.C.]’s Howard Theater, young people could wait outside the stage door for Lester Young or Dizzy Gillespie. They had access that surely, nobody has with artists who perform today at the Kennedy Center.

“The alienation of the music from the social base has had severe consequences both for the music, and the social base.”

The panelists, and Jenkins, seemed to find agreement in all these points, among many others: that while European jazz continues to be vital and interesting, the diminishment of the blues tradition is a great loss; that we should be less concerned with labels like “jazz” that put musicians in a box, and more concerned with realizing their human potential; and that the rise of academic status for jazz has coincided with a loss of its character.” The audience, judging from their reactions and questions, was convinced too. Nonetheless, the conversation did raise some important questions: Did the “ghetto genius” of the past not coincide at times with a black middle and upper-middle class, like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington? And certainly, those musicians were among many who agitated for jazz to receive greater institutional support and academic status in the decades before that happened; was that a mistake? Is there a “Be careful what you wish for” lesson to be taken from the situation?

Happily, a panel discussion like this is the start of a valuable conversation, not the end.

The most interesting part of this weekend’s jazz performances at the Phillips Collection isn’t advertised in the Festival’s schedules. All weekend, solo musicians are moving through the Phillips galleries with their instruments, stopping at pieces of art, and responding to those works by improvising music.

Saturday afternoon the roving player was David Schulman, a Takoma Park radio producer and jazz violinist, who was also playing viol in the galleries—along with an electronic pedals-and-effects console and a small Kustom amp. As he found artworks that inspired him to play, Schulman used the electronics to create his own accompaniment. He would improvise until he found a riff he liked, record that riff, play it back on a loop, then improvise again over that, creating layers as thin or dense as he wanted them (not unlike the innovations that Robin Eubanks developed a couple years ago.

But Schulman had quite the arsenal of sounds to begin with. He was playing two instruments; one (the violin) was amplified, and one was not; and he was plucking and bowing each of them. Add to that the canned beats he was using, and Schulman was his own small combo, creating spontaneous and completely unique music off the inspiration of the modern art in the Collection’s Goh Annex. It was hard not to be wowed; the audience certainly was.

Schulman finished just before 4:00, at which time Reginald Cyntje was performing in the music room. The trombonist, originally from St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, brought pianist Janelle Gill and bassist Herman Burney Jr. to play an hourlong set of chamber jazz in Cyntje’s romantic idiom.

They began with a gentle “Body and Soul,” Cyntje so sensitive and graceful that his trombone might have been mistaken for a French horn, and Gill with a light touch and haunting sound. Burney’s bass was a bit removed from the mood, with a buzzing tone and faintly clipped attack, but his skill and imagination were nonetheless impressive.

The program was a mix of bebop and Caribbean flavorings. In each successive tune, Cyntje managed to inject some romance—even in the fun calypso “St. Thomas.” Gill, even with her light fingering, displayed a capacity for both the airy and earthy on a nameless tune that sounded like a Jamaican lullabye, and Burney recovered from the opener enough to work some magic, too, commandeering an improvised blues with a long, chopsy, gutbucket solo that shook the walls.

If it hadn’t been for the obnoxious teenager in Cyntje’s audience who thought it was hilarious to intone “YEAH!” in his deepest voice every two minutes, Jazz n’ Families Fun Day would have been a nearly flawless feast for the eyes and ears.