Compelling instrumental music by Boney James, Brian Culbertson, Chaka Khan and Norman Brown. Beautiful summer nights, thousands upon thousands of grateful fans, boats anchored on the river and incredible soulful you'd love to dance to or just sit back and groove to.
In the past this festival has been known for presenting the very best relaxing smooth jazz recording artists, for an affordable ticket price. For fifteen dollars you could see full hour long plus sets by amazing and legendary recording arrests and you could move right up to the front of the stage with your lawn chairs, leaving some room for the dancers, of course. It was a landmark event tin a beautiful setting between the river and Ricks Boatyard.
So what happened. GREED.in the past, the sheer numbers of attendees at the fifteen dollar cost, offset the festival costs. Then they started raising the prices, then they moved fifty PREMIUM RESERVED seats up front, watched by big security guards. Then they did the most insulting thing of it all, they COMBINED HEADLINERS, so that performers like Peter White, Rick Braun, Cheilli Minucci or Gerlad Albright could only be seen together on the same stage, each only having time to play a couple of their own songs. Seeing the amazing Maysa wasn't like seeing Chaka.
So what started as a generous presentation of a form of music that is brilliant but gets no forum on the radio, limped in to finish up last year. I hope there will be no more of these. Last year It was fifty dollars admission for one day, to see all the perfumers together on the stage playing only a couple of their songs, all held indoors at the old movie palace theater. It was an insult to call it the Riverfront Jazz Fest. Because although the river overflowed, there were other venues it could have been held to maintain it's integrity, but the organizer didn't want to be bothered with them. The stadium was empty those nights and so was the jazz on the green area.
This WAS a great event. It is no longer, because anyone that tries anything for too long in this town succumbs to apathy. Thats apparently what happened here.
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