Skinny and damp
I was really asleep at the switch. Somehow the Syracuse Jazz Festival for this year eluded my attention until yesterday morning — a day and a half after it started. It was only then I found out Tuba Skinny would be playing in downtown Syracuse tonight!
Tuba Skinny and then Spyro Gyra and then Gladys Knight, in fact. And Friday night’s lineup was no slouch either: Postmodern Jukebox, Tower of Power, and Herbie Hancock.
I opted out of Friday night, though, since there was rain forecast for both Friday and Saturday, and I figured one night of sitting in the rain listening to music would be enough, and I wanted that to be for Tuba Skinny. I’ve been following them on YouTube for years, I drove about 250 km and paid to go to a festival back in 2019 almost solely because they were going to be there, and I was not going to pass up seeing them in my home town.
I did go tonight, and it did rain. And the sun shone. Sometimes at the same time.
The only disappointment was that Tuba Skinny’s trombonist, Barnabus Jones, wasn’t there. At least the absentee wasn’t Craig Flory, the clarinetist. The brilliant clarinetist. Anyway, it was a great set.
I went off to find some food and a CD (“Magnolia Stroll”) and came back to catch most of the Spyro Gyra set.
Did I mention this festival was free? It was. Not to be confused with the New York State Blues Festival last weekend at the State Fairgrounds, which was free. Man, Syracuse gets it right sometimes.