Like thousands of northeast Ohio students this week, the Hingetown Jazz Festival is headed back to school adding student ensembles from four area colleges and universities to the lineup of Saturday’s all-day, all-local free festival.
“Businesses that are in the Hingetown area that for whatever reason, don’t have the infrastructure to host groups, can at least be involved,” Rogers said by phone last week. “They are creating specials, and that’s opened up opportunities for additional venues in future years. I’d really like to pursue a couple of them and have two additional venues next year to make it five.”
The three venues that will host music this year have been with the festival since its maiden voyage in 2023. BOP STOP is a natural fulcrum and will get the day’s music underway at 2 p.m. with Cleveland jazz’s First Lady of Song, Evelyn Wright. Thirty minutes later, Saucy Brew Works will host the first of three student ensembles, while music on Jukebox’s outdoor patio begins at 3 p.m. with Akron pianist Jennifer James making her Hingetown debut.
Start times of all performances are staggered so that nimble festival goers can catch at least a bit of all 10 ensembles between the hours of 2-9 p.m. That’s the beauty of having three venues that are no more than a two-minute walk from one another.
Fresh Sounds, New Talent
Of course, there’s a lot to be said for picking a venue and settling in–especially if you’re interested in the future of the scene. If so, Saucy Brew Works is your preferred destination with consecutive performances by ensembles from Kent State, Cleveland State and Tri-C.
At Jukebox, the University of Akron Jazz Combo will get a first-hand look at how a musical career can blossom when it follows the set by James. She’s a bachelor’s and master’s degree graduate of UA who is in her first year teaching at Cleveland State. “I was able to get my CSU fellow instructors, Bill Ransom and Christopher Vance, representing Cleveland State and showing off the faculty that we’re building and showing the culture that we’re cultivating.”
Like most young musicians these days, James races along several parallel career paths, including teaching, leading multiple groups, sideperson work and accompanying vocalists, something she’ll do in the festival’s closing performance by the Grace Blackford Quintet Blackford, a vocalist best known for her work on the indie and singer-songwriter scenes, will be joined by bassist Sebastian Mango, Zaire Darden on drums and guitarist Ricardo Morales, who is also her husband.
“This will be the first time this group has played together and I’m really excited about it” Blackford said on a video call last week. “I’ll be doing material from two of my projects, Inside My Head and my recent EP, How Does Anybody Ever Move On? I wouldn’t call either of those jazz projects,” she said. But, she added, “because I had a formal training in jazz, when I go to write, it’s going to come through no matter what I do. It’s there, it’s present. So that’s kind of how I like to describe it, is jazz influenced R&B.”
Squarely within the jazz language are the three saxophonist-led bands that round out the festival’s lineup. Justin Tibbs’ kinetic JT’s Electrik Blackout and John Klayman’s Prism hold down the 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. spots respectively at BOP STOP while Steve Kortyka’s Rewired gets last ups at Jukebox at 6 p.m.
That’s a lot of moving parts, but with new commitments to handle backline and the addition of play-anywhere, do-everything Garrett Folger to the festival’s two-person staff of Rogers and co-director Dan Bruce, it all comes together.
“I feel like the more we mobilize the neighborhood and the people and the businesses, the more they mobilize one another,” Rogers said. “Like one of my childhood heroes–Hello, girl from Minnesota!—Paul Wellstone said, the idea that when everybody does better, everybody does better.”
BOP STOP at the Music Settlement
2:00 — Evelyn Wright Trio
5:00 — JT’s Electrik Blackout
6:30 — John Klayman’s Prism
8:00 — Grace Blackford Quintet
Saucy Brew Works
2:30 — The Kent State University Jazz Combo
4:00 — Cleveland State University Jazz Combo
5:30 — Tri-C Jazz Studies Fellowship Ensemble
Jukebox
3:00 — Jennifer James Trio
4:30 — University of Akron Jazz Combo
6:00 — Steve Kortyka’s Rewired
For the most complete listing of jazz and jazz-adjacent events., look to Jim Szabo’s essential, weekly Northeast Ohio jazz calendar.
