The first day of the 2010 Bellevue Jazz Festival got off to a respectable if not rabid start, a low-impact workout in preparation for the long weekend of shows. Thursday night’s performances were an all-local affair with familiar names playing five venues including the Theatre at Meydenbauer Center, where all the headline performers can be heard.
Pianist Overton Berry and vocalist Gail Pettis officially started off the festival, with Berry playing a 5 p.m. set on the first floor of the Lincoln Square shopping center and Pettis singing (also at 5 p.m.) three blocks away – Bellevue’s large blocks are car-sized, not people sized – in the year-old Grand Cru Wine Bar on the ground floor of the TEN20 apartment complex.
Organizers have programmed the festival in three layers, with performances by some of the area’s best high-school musicians and bands (mostly during the day), local professionals playing at night for free, and the big-name national acts performing in the Theatre. Only the Theatre shows require a paid ticket. Another attraction of the festival is downtown Bellevue itself, much of it newly paved and constructed. The shopping plazas, hotels, restaurants and bars have been turned into jazz clubs for the weekend.
Pettis, accompanied by pianist Randy Halberstadt, sang to a standing-room-only crowd at the year-old Grand Cru Wine Bar. The pair was tucked in a corner by the window, behind a steel-mesh, floor-to-ceiling curtain that served as a buffer to the intimate dining room.
Pianist June Tonkin played solo all night at the El Gaucho Bellevue, a huge, cavernous space that never quite filled up. The space dwarfed her performance, rendering it to background music for the most part. Tonkin’s playing was lively – she will be also be at El Gaucho Friday and Saturday night, with Primo Kim coming in on Sunday – but anyone walking in for a drinks or dinner would not have easily determined that they had walked into a special event (like a jazz festival).
Pettis’ crowd-pleasing set ended at 6:30. Pianist Eric Verlinde and bassist Jon Hamar came in to play the late set at Grand Cru. Both Verlinde and Halberstadt had to lug electric pianos. At least El Gaucho has its own piano, although it is a baby grand whose sound cannot quite keep up with the size of the restaurant, located on the ground level of a glass tower that serves as satellite offices for Microsoft.
After playing with Pettis, Halberstadt made his way to the Theatre at Meydenbauer three blocks away to perform with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, Thursday’s headline act. The festival’s “Rising Stars” opened for the SRJO. Both drew modest crowds, filling about half of the auditorium’s capacity of 410 people.
The Rising Stars were nominated by high-school band directors and selected by a panel of judges to rehearse together and perform in the festival. The stars, many of them alumni of recent Essentially Ellington competitions, represent some of the area’s most promising talent. Selected this year was: Dylan Allrun-Faltisco, trumpet, Edmonds-Woodway High School, senior; Max Bates, alto saxophone/flute, Bellevue, senior; Tory Brediger, bass, Shorewood, senior; Matt Bumgardner, trombone, Mt. Si, sophomore; Eric Dubbury, trumpet, Edmonds-Woodway; Joe Gladow, tenor sax, Shorewood, senior; Peter Graham, piano, Bellevue, senior; Max Holmberg, drums, Roosevelt, senior; Brian Lawrence, tenor sax/piano, Bellevue, sophomore; Mat Muntz, bass, Roosevelt, senior; Ariel Pocock, piano/vocals, Newport, junior; James Squires, drums, Garfield, senior; Nolan Tsang, trumpet, Bellevue.
Instead of coming up with a new set of music for the jazz festival, the SRJO played selections from past concerts, a decision which might have curbed attendance. The band played songs from its Ray Charles, Charles Mingus, and Miles Davis concerts.
The last set of music for the night was at the Wild Ginger restaurant in the new upscale Bravern shopping center. The Bellevue Wild Ginger, like its downtown Seattle progenitor, is a roomy, multi-level space that follows what seems to be a pattern of large, corporate Seattle restaurants cloning copies in Bellevue.
Joe Doria’s trio (Doria on Hammond organ, Byron Vannoy on drums, Chris Spencer on guitar) played in the lower level of the Wild Ginger, just off the satay bar. Dividing walls separated a row of booths and a lounge from the main space. You could still hear the music fairly well upstairs thanks to an open atrium/staircase. The group’s energetic, bluesy set worked well in the big room, making its presence known without demanding to be listened to. The audience was not rapt but appreciative, most of them coming for the food as much as the music.
That was and probably will be the case for most of the club-portion of the festival which allows for the casual, passive listener as well as the focused fan. Unlike, say the Earshot festival, the Bellevue Jazz Festival is more for the soft-core fan, those who might be new to the genre and hoping to hear standards and listenable swing. Judging by the first night, festival-goers were there as much for the night out as the music.
Thursday night did not exactly feel like a “festival.” The big streets felt mostly empty. The distances between venues were comfortably walkable, at least without any rain. Bellevue still lacks that lived-in feeling, with the atmosphere of a model-home: big, clean and expectant of good days to come.