The festival season is in full swing and two of my three favorites have come and gone with great memories and promises of more to come. 

Daniel Ho and “the band formerly known as Kilauea” performed at the KYOT Birthday Bash this year in Scottsdale. That is the unofficial kick off to the concert season for me. The Summer KYOT series begins shortly after that, but the birthday bash is a great day. In years past, Wayman Tisdale, Jeff Golub and Joyce Cooling, excuse me, AW Joyce have performed. It was good to see Daniel Ho and the band play some from the Kilauea classics and a few from his slack key solo CDs. In fact, the next week, Daniel returned with guitar in hand and performed some selections at the Hilo Hatties in Tempe. Yes, the wonderful tropical island known as Arizona.

With the year halfway over, I can look back and remember some of my favorite performances and shows. 

Number one moment so far this year was watching Richard Elliot and Rick Braun perform a live version of “Grazing In The Grass” at May Day at the Fountains Festival in Fountain Hills. They had not played together for many months, but any time these G&S veterans play together, it is as if they are together all of the time. At one point, I could see Richard look up at Rick and say, “I don’t know what I am doing”.  Yeah, right.

Best performance so far had to be this year’s version of the Guitars and Saxes show. I have felt that the past few line ups have not lived up to earlier versions. I thought there needed to be a little more spontaneity and passion that has been lost. (Of course, refer back to previous comments about Rick and Richard showing they can still thrill). 

Well, this line up has that enthusiasm, that spontaneity, that passion. They seemed to enjoy being there and not going through the motions. A good variety of music and I thought it was great having Jeff Golub’s Avenue Blue horns there in the back up band. 

The biggest surprise, and this probably expose in the “where have you been” category, was Euge Groove at the old Pasadena Jazz Fest. Although it is my second favorite event of the year, it is difficult for the day time performers to generate crowd enthusiasm. Eugene had to be the best afternoon performer since Willie and Lobo opened the festival a few years back. 

Also added to my list of favorite performances for the first half of the year are:

Acoustic Alchemy at Red River Music Hall, Turning Point, yes, the valley’s own, at May Day on the Fountain, Richard Elliot at Four Seasons Resort, David Benoit at Red River and Peter White in Redlands. Yes, Greg Vail helped make the show. By the way, we have added some pics of Greg Vail in the photo section.

If you have taken the time to peek at this site, we would like to hear from you. Please add a comment in the Guest Book section. Good, bad, don’t care, we want to read what you have to say. Let others know of your favorite venues, favorite concerts so far and if we will see you in the jazz Mecca, Catalina, this year. The Memberto Brothers will be there the first two week ends. 

So, happy smoothing to you and yours. 

greg