Festivals Featured Summer art, performance fests return to Cleveland
By Jane Kaufman
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paces in Northeast Ohio will be bathed in color, surrounded by sound and wafting with aromas of freshly cooked food this summer. People will dance in the street under the iconic chandelier at Playhouse Square during the Tri-C JazzFest. Artists and craftspeople from across the country and locally will converge to present their wares, play and sing. As Canvas looks ahead to upcoming festivals, we talked with several event leaders about what attendees can expect for 2022. TRI-C JAZZFEST After moving to a virtual platform in 2020 and to Cain Park in Cleveland Heights on a smaller scale in 2021, Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland will be back at Playhouse Square June 23 to June 25. “This is our homecoming,” says Terri Pontremoli, director of the Tri-C JazzFest. “We’re excited about the fact that we’re going to be in the theaters – the beautiful theaters again with our national acts – and outdoors, we will have the stage and under the chandelier and people dancing. And we will feature probably somewhere between 16 and 19 local jazz bands.” Headlining the festival will be John Clayton, conducting an all-star big band, vocalist and guitarist John Pizzarelli, and Anthony Hamilton, who will perform a night of rhythm and blues, along with Brian Culbertson, known for smooth jazz. Pontremoli says festival goers can expect to hear a wide range of styles that are related to jazz. There will be food trucks and a cooking tent called the jazz kitchen, which will feature local chefs doing food demonstrations with the help of jazz musicians, she says. There will also be interviews with writers and musicians. “It’s going to feel pretty much like it used to feel,” she says. The festival will also feature 85-year-old Eddie Palmieri,
whom Pontremoli described as “one of the finest pianists.” She says Palmieri is “so much fun and so energetic.” Northeast Ohio natives Joe Lovano and Sean Jones are also headlining. “Both of these players are terrific, wonderful players, great musicians,” Pontremoli says. “We haven’t had them at our festival for some years. It seemed really fitting that in our homecoming, we brought them back.” The JazzFest also features Dominick Farinacci, whom Pontremoli refers to as “an artist-in-residence for us.” He is from Cleveland, now lives in New York City and teaches at Cuyahoga Community College. Farinacci will play with his group, Triad, and will perform in a double-bill concert also featuring French vocalist Cyrille Aimée. Ghost-Note will deliver a funk-inspired concert, and New Mexico singer-songwriter Raul Midón will also take the stage. And as an educational component, the Tri-C JazzFest Academy is offered to students ages 11 to 18, where at the end of its summer academy they perform at the festival. “They come here, they interact with all the artists that we bring in for master classes throughout the year and also at the festival,” Pontremoli says, adding those students often go to other cities to make their careers. “But we make sure that they come back, they perform and they teach. … It’s like the circle of life. It’s beautiful.” Connections are sometimes made at the JazzFest with lifechanging implications for those young musicians. Pontremoli relates that Farinacci met jazz musician Wynton Marsalis at the JazzFest when Farinacci was 15, after someone literally pushed Farinacci into Marsalis’ dressing room and told him to play. Marsalis was impressed and eventually landed Farinacci a four-year scholarship to The Juilliard School, when Marsalis was running its jazz program. Because of that educational intent, JazzFest aims to be accessible to those of all ages and income levels, with some free
Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland. Photo / Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland
32 | Canvas | Spring 2022
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