Cully Day 6 - Festival midpoint

It's the mid point of the festival today. Four days behind. Four more days ahead. Was happy to find chairs in mainstage #1 today to hear Chrisoph Stiefel's Inner Language Trio. Modern, creative, swinging. Definitely dug it.

Then (next on mainstage #1) was David Murray's Infinity Quartet featuring Saul Williams. Saul did mostly spoken word with the quartet. With a jazz quartet he reminded me more of Kurt Elling and the beat poets than Tupac Shukar. Saul is actually heading to New York City to star in "Holla If Ya Hear Me", a new Broadway musical based on the music of Tupac.

Today also marked the first time I have seen (or heard) a saxophone at the festival! The quartet did a few number by themselves, but mostly with Saul doing his spoken word. Very cool. And quite captivating.

During the middle of the week there are less clubs (Off Festival). There was only one last night and two tonight. Tomorrow there will be seven clubs open and then 15 for the rest of the festival. I poked my head into Vintner's Vault again. Same band as last night. Then I wandered up to a club called Das Schlagzeug. That means drum set in German. I haven't heard anyone speaking German here. And all the other clubs appear to have French names. The band is the Akku Quintet.

It was really dark in the club. Yes, it is a quartet. There is a keyboard player on the right. But BlogSpot is cutting off the right side of the picture. This band made me think hard about the difference between groove and melody. This band was really good at the former and didn't do much of the latter. Just when I thought the guitar player was taking a solo it turned into a 2-bar phrase repeated over and over again. So it's really just part of the groove. Not what I'd call a melody. There was a bass solo. I could tell because no one else was playing. But it still felt like all groove and no melody to me.

And look, two saxophones in one night! It really is a jazz festival. There was one point where just the guitar and sax played. A sax melody on top of a guitar groove--yeah. But it didn't last long and they were back to all groove and no melody. And Des Gaufres (the waffle booth) was calling my name. I ended the night with a yummy chocolate waffle. My 3rd of the festival. I may have started my own waffle tradition.