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Show 18 qART FESTIVAL Jazzy jive and hurdy gurdy The audio side of the Art Festival BYJA YMEEHAN WENTY EIGHT separate performing acts featuring sixteen six-teen rather eclectic styles of music. In other words, the I audio side of this year's edition of the always multi-sensual Park City Art Festival would seem to be on a par with the visual. And that is saying something, when you consider that the visual artists and their wares attract at-tract upwards of 100,000 visitors to historic Main Street for this special weekend every August. The music will be presented on a continuous con-tinuous basis, from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. each day, from two stages located at opposite ends of Main Street. The Treasure Mountain Stage will be located across the street from the Treasure Mountain Inn on upper Main Street. The Courtyard Stage will be located at the Kimball Art Center Courtyard at the bottom of Main Street. I Joe Muscolino's Big Band appeals to all ages. Now, if you have varied musical tastes, this is where the problem may arise. Quite possibly there will be too much good music going on at the same time at two different locations. Now, I know aaasjBDgioaEo 1 Va, -kt that we're not talking about any tremendous distance between the two stages, but if physics is a true science and with time and space being what they are, music just cannot exist at the speed of light. So you had best come to terms with it festival goers, you are going to miss some great music. I mean, just look at Saturday morning's morn-ing's schedule. It's only 10 o'clock and they've already put you in a quandry. The Treasure Mountain Stage has the fine jazz stylings of the Wolking-Rovner Sextet while performing at the Courtyard Cour-tyard are the extremely talented Ten-penny, Ten-penny, a traditional group from Salt Lake City which lays some of the finest songs, ballads and fiddle tunes from the British Isles and North America upon your auditory nerves. They do this via the ever-so-lilting-and-mellow tones of guitar, fiddle, whistle, flute, mandolin, bouzouki, banjo, concertina, kalimba, hurdy-gurdy, mouth organ, bones and bodhran. Wolking and Rovner combined their considerable academic jazz skills a couple of years ago and have become one of Utah's hottest combos. Wolking, who may be the more familiar of the two local jazz buffs from his performances with J. D. Moffat at the Car 19's old spaghetti and jazz series, is currently chairman of jazz studies at the University Univer-sity of Utah and chairman of jazz theory for the National Association of Jazz Educators. Rovner is also a jazz instructor instruc-tor at the "U", A Berklee School of Music grad, and the leader of the Lou Rovner Small Big Band. If one were forced for-ced to arrive at a forte for the Wolking-Rovner Wolking-Rovner Sextet it would probably be their individual original material and the interesting and unique ways in which they choose to interpret traditional jazz. Following Tenpenny on the Courtyard Cour-tyard Stage is the irrepressible and oftentimes often-times "loony" Deseret String Band. You never know what they're going to throw at you next. It could be the oral musical traditions of Ireland, the Appalacian hybrid styles which evolved in the early colonies, waltzes, Texas two-steps, cowboy campfire songs, square dances, or something from the rich musical heritage of Utah's pioneers. Or all of the above. We're talking about fun here. The Salt Lake Good Time Band (nee The Easy Winners Dixieland Band) is next up at the top of the street. The present five-piece band has added the interesting in-teresting traditional jazz-blues styles of Kansas City and Chicago to the original group's New Orleans sound. As group founder, banjoist-guitarist Raoul Longworth recently put it "We decided that a change was needed so as to be more elastic in the musical idiom." You dig? A race back to the bottom and the Courtyard gets you the country, folk, soft rock of Park City locals Kat and Mickey. Their set is often the musical meeting place of Ian and Sylvia, Juice Newton, Lacy J. Dalton, and some frequently hilarious original material. By the way, it's just after noon and the Fertile Dirt Band is setting up on the Treasure Mountain Stage. This band showcases the old-time Texas-style technique of 1980 Grand National Fiddle Fid-dle Champion Terry Field, while performing per-forming a blend of traditional and contemporary con-temporary bluegrass, ballads, and assorted assor-ted original material. Local contemporary music buffs who are familiar with James Scott's recent "Dinosaurs in the Cafe" LP will not want to miss his 1:00 p.m. set at the Courtyard. This singer, songwriter, guitarist is as original a solo performer as has graced local stages in quite a while, and if one has the time to listen, can be very entertaining both instrumentally and vocally. At 2:00 p.m. we have a direct conflict of interest once again. The upper Main Street area will now be-a-boppin' to the soulful, struttin', pre-swing Fats Waller-Billy Waller-Billy Holliday-ish sounds of that ever-so-accoustically-correct "Jordan River Uptown Up-town Band". These folks flat throw their finger snappin', toe tappin', suspender snappin' jazzy jive everwhichway. Look out!!! And while all this is going on up-street, up-street, down-street it's the more contemporary con-temporary jazz of Harold Carr and Friends. The always interesting Carr combo has performed before appreciative ap-preciative audiences at most Utah jazz venues and remains a very entertaining group. Can you believe it? It's still only Saturday and there are five more groups to go. It seems unending. And I haven't even left the typewriter. Back to the Courtyard. It's mandolin and guitar time, folks, with instrumental virtuosos Jarman and Kingston for your Continued on next page. |