I made sure we got to the jazz tent early, i wanted to have a seat and snuggle up to a cozy evening with wynton marsalis. Julie held fort while i did my thing at the sheraton bathroom (8.5/10). While in my travels she called and informed me that our tickets (which had just been ripped, our hands stamped, and our bodies admitted to the venue) were for the night prior. Wynton had already played!

I asked julie on this phone call “oh, so who’s tonight?” she replied “bela fleck”, and the rest was a night of wicked 4 and sometimes 5 string bass, and the antics of a tight stringed banjo player.

Interesting to note: among the crowd, several people i knew, but most notably: Ted Cole. Banjo player extrodinaire, and ex-camp owner, enjoying the fruits of what is probably his first June 28th evening south of the 44th parallel in 60-some years. Reminds me of something Joshua Newman once said to me: he had been spending so much time up north during the summers, whether it be cottaging or camping, that he never entered the downtown core in the summer months. Because of his lack of exposure to warm sweaty june and july days in our fare city, his memory had written the core as a ‘cold’ place.

-JC