The Cape Codder
Provincetown Jazz Festival brings out the
best
By Joe Burns
August 11, 2009
The police are coming to
Provincetown. No, not the ‘80s new wave
Sting thing. These musicians not only can keep a beat, they also walk a beat.
The New York’s Finest Jazz Ensemble, New York City police department’s 18-piece
jazz band, performing at the Provincetown Jazz Festival is among a broad range
of musicians and vocalists that will take part in the three day festival.
The fest which runs Friday, Aug. 14 through Sunday, Aug. 16, at the
Provincetown High School auditorium, has brought together performers from far
and near for this, its fifth year. “You have to have a balance. You have to
make sure you have all kinds of jazz represented," says the festival’s organizer
and promoter Bart Weisman.
“I always try to make sure that we’re premiering talent that never performed at
the festival before.” Weisman adds.
“They may not be household names but their talent is up there with the first
string of talent.”
The festival opens Friday evening with String of Pearls, a female trio from New
York City whose repertoire covers a 70-year span from the Boswell Sisters on
through to contemporary Brazilian-flavored jazz.
Sharing the bill with the trio is vocalist Beat Kaestli, a Swiss-born singer
now based in New York. His voice has been described in Ejazz
News as having “a hint of Chet Baker but [with] a bit more muscle.”
Saturday night’s performance features Shawnn Monteiro, the daughter of jazz
musician Jimmy Woode, long-time bass player with Duke
Ellington’s band. “She’s up there when you think of a Sarah Vaughn type of
singer gracefully keeping the standards alive. She has her own style but she hails
from the Sarah Vaughn school of singing,” Weisman
says.
Also in the Saturday line-up, New York’s Finest Jazz Ensemble will be in force
as well. The band, which travels throughout the world as Big Apple ambassadors,
performs a broad range of styles from Dixieland to blues, bop, cool jazz and
Latin jazz. (And yes, they have performed with The Police). The band members are all full time police
officers, which sometimes makes scheduling them somewhat tricky.
“They were supposed to perform Sunday but the mayor wants them back on Sunday,”
Weisman says, noting that a bit of juggling was needed to accommodate the
change in dates.
The festival concludes on Sunday with an afternoon twin bill of vocalist
Krisanthi Pappas and pianist John Harrison III and guitarist Jim Robitaille.
Pappas is a smooth, warm voiced singer/songwriter whose been compared to Norah
Jones.
“She’ll be performing with her trio made up of Andy Solberg on guitar and
Marshall Wood [on bass], who just did a little stint with Tony Bennett,”
Weisman says.
Harrison and Robitaille have performed here before, but as sidemen. ”This is
their chance to shine,” Weisman says. The
two are going to be performing contemporary jazz in the first set, and will be
backed by Weisman on drums and Bill Miele on electric bass. The quartet will
also be backing Monteiro during her Saturday show.
“We’re still a growing festival. We’re not trying to set the world on fire yet,
we’re getting there,” Weisman says, citing the growing interest the event is
garnering.
“We’re in a situation now where my [performers] waiting list is two to three
years long,” Weisman says. “I’m getting inquiries not only across the United
States and Canada. I’m also starting to get a lot of European inquiries.”