All that jazz

Events held at seventeen venues across the County

From Consecon to Waupoos, this year’s Prince Edward County Jazz Festival offered an eclectic variety of jazz to satisfy all tastes. With performers ranging from duos to big bands, emerging artists and Juno winners, local artists and big-city headliners, this year’s festival was bigger and, according to Creative Director Brian Barlow, better than ever. The eighteenth annual festival opened with a talk and film presentation by Barlow on August 14, with live music starting the following evening at the Waring House. After that the joint was jumping, with music performances at venues across the County and nightly main stage concerts at the Regent Theatre through to the culminating session by the Brian Barlow Big Band on Sunday.

Rising Young Star Emily Steinwall performs on the Regent Stage with the Brian Barlow Big Band on Sunday night.

This festival is unique for a number of reasons. Barlow takes it as a point of pride that it is truly a jazz festival—it is all jazz, all the time. Many of the performers stay in the County for the duration of the festival; they are not here to simply perform, but to also take in what this region has to offer. Added to this is a nurturing and mentoring program for young, emerging talent. Barlow was more than pleased with this year’s festival. “There were many things about this year that were special,” he said. “We had some new venues and those went really well. This is the Prince Edward County jazz festival, we need to be out there and around. We had the Old Third Winery—they had a sold-out concert.” A new initiative this year was an after-hours jam session in the loft at the Regent Theatre, which proved to be very popular.

This year’s festival took place with the support of mostly local sponsors, and partnerships with local businesses. “It’s not just asking for money, but working with them so they get something,” said Barlow. “Like Libby Crombie—we worked at the Glenwood Chapel—that was her idea. We did a jazz event there and it was filled. We can talk to people about Glenwood, and it moves the jazz festival into the community in a really important way.” The concert at Glenwood was free, although patrons were encouraged to make a donation to help with the Chapel’s maintenance or the repair of the damaged monuments. Keeping these jazz concerts accessible to everyone is another aspect of this festival; there were also free concerts at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, as well as a live music and dance event at Oeno Gallery’s Sculpture Garden.

Encouraging young talent is one of the signature features of this festival. “I was really pleased with the number of young people here this year, and very pleased with the number of young women,” said Barlow. “We don’t mandate that. We’re not going out and intentionally trying to find them. They just happen to be very good musicians.” Three such young women whose paths intersected at the festival were Emily Steinwall, Marika Galea and Tara Davidson. Steinwall is a vocalist and tenor saxophone player and is this year’s Rising Young Star. She appeared on the Regent Stage to perform at least one piece at each of the concerts, and was a member of the afterhours jam. “The jazz community is so welcoming and so supportive of younger people,” she said. “It is such a treat. They are so good at what they do and it’s nice just to play with them and hear them that closely.”

Galea first took part in the jazz festival in 2010 as a high school student and was the Rising Young Star in 2014, and also played here in 2015 and 2016. She is a bassist and was invited to play at this year’s festival, performing with Steinwall at St. Andrew’s on Friday afternoon. “Brian is a very encouraging person and I think that in 2014 he was very affirming of me as a Rising Young Star, so I’m very comfortable coming back here and being his guest,” she said. “I’m playing with people that I looked up to when I was in high school, which is kind of nice.” Juno-nominated saxophonist Davidson is this year’s Featured Artist, and she played with Galea at Glenwood Chapel. She has played internationally in China, Brazil and Europe, and embraces the concept of nurturing young talent at this festival. “Inclusion is an excellent thing, and it’s important to showcase them and give them an audience early and get them working with more established musicians,” she said. “It’s a fantastic thing.”