As Summerfest Grows, So Does Its Range

The Playboy Jazz Festival at Earthlink’s Old Pasadena Summerfest just keeps getting bigger and bigger. This year, Saturday and Sunday’s performances drew larger crowds than ever before--as, in fact, did the entire Summerfest, which had more arts and crafts booths, more carnival attractions, more food stands and more sports activities. No wonder the annual Memorial Day weekend event has grown from a small, local Pasadena celebration to a jubilee that draws well over 100,000 attendees from every corner of the Southland.

A music festival’s achievements are not solely defined by the size of the attendance, however. The Playboy Summerfest event, after all, is a free program, so in that respect it’s probably not surprising that it attracts substantial attendance.

But this year’s festival was a success on several levels. The first was the attractive range of programming. Following the lead of next month’s Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl, the Pasadena lineup encompassed a far-reaching range of musical styles.

Brenda Lee Eager’s soul-style vocals, for example, contrasted with Carmen Lundy’s brisk jazz scatting; the edgy sounds of David Ornette Cherry & Impressions of Energy took a far different slant from the jazz harp playing of Lori Andrews, the eclectic saxophone work of Lincoln Adler, the veteran jazz of Prime (with pianist Tom Ranier, bassist Abraham Laboriel and drummer Peter Donald) and the stirring jazz violin of 83-year-old Johnny Frigo; and the blues artist Bernie Pearl and flamenco guitarist Luis Villegas offered dramatically different approaches to the same instrument.

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The festival’s second important attribute was the high quality of the performances. It would be relatively easy, with a warm and receptive crowd, for artists to simply go for their most audience-pleasing numbers rather than dig into the more expressive depths of their music. But most of the performers managed to do both, balancing more adventurous numbers with crowd-stirring musical romps.

Guitarist Joyce Cooling, who headlined Saturday’s show, was a good example. A performer whose smooth jazz efforts are founded upon a solid mainstream structure, she delivered one of her major hits--”South of Market”--with roaring rhythm-section support from keyboardist Jay Wagner, bassist Gary Calvin and drummer Billy Johnson. Pleasing from a pop instrumental perspective, it was also delivered with an authoritative jazz feeling. Her impressive performance--which included an animated, guitar-playing stroll through the audience--was good enough to warrant a position for Cooling in next year’s Playboy Jazz at the Hollywood Bowl lineup.

Saturday’s performance also featured the surging rhythms and trombone-rich harmonies of percussionist Johnny Blas, concentrating on material from his “King Conga” album. On Sunday, conguero Poncho Sanchez offered a contrasting approach to Latin jazz. Enriched by a three-man horn section, multiple percussion and his own stirring solos, Sanchez and his group rocketed through everything from irresistible salsa (bringing the crowd to their feet) to a sensual rendering of Thelonious Monk’s “In Walked Bud.”

Sunday’s schedule listed appearances by the Braxton Brothers, flutist Nestor Torres, singer-minister O.C. Smith and his Sunday Morning Band, trombonist Phil Ranelin and his Jazz Ensemble, guitarist Eric Byak and the Nairobi Trio.