Celebrating 10 years of jazz

The Second Line Parade steps off during a previous Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival. The parade, a tradition which began as part of the festival in 2017, will be led this year by the Brown Rice Family and the Community Music School of Springfield’s Sonido Musica students and faculty. The parade begins at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday and steps off from Springfield City Hall.

(ED COHEN PHOTO)

Jazz and Roots Festival returns downtown

Thursday through Saturday

By K eith O ’C onnor Special to The Republican

Now celebrating its10th anniversary, the Springfield Jazz and Roots Festival returns to Springfield, starting today, for three days showcasing a diverse lineup of national stars and local talent spanning jazz, blues, funk, hip hop, Latin, and African music genres.

All the action takes place on Fort Street tonight, and moves to Stearns Square and Tower Square Park for Friday and Saturday.

The festival is produced by Blues To Green, a nonprofit organization inspired by the late Charles Neville and founded by his wife, Kristin Neville, that is dedicated to using music and art to center the cultures of the African diaspora within American culture, nurture personal freedom, strengthen multicultural community, and catalyze action for racial, economic, and climate justice in Springfield and beyond.

Neville said she is “especially excited” about some new aspects to the festival this year.

“We extended the festival to two days last year, and we are once again expanding the growing festival’s footprint to include a special Thursday evening kickoff concert by the Garifuna Collective outdoors at the Student Prince on Fort Street from 7-8:30 p.m.,” Neville said.

Garifuna Collective was co-founded and led by the late Andy Palacio, a musician dedicated to preserving the unique Garifuna language and culture. Today the group of accomplished, multi-generational Garifuna artists continue to tour in his memory and focus on the roots of Garifuna tradition, adding contemporary elements to traditional forms to bring the soul of this music into a modern context.

“I’m also looking forward to a collaboration between Avery Sharpe and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra and Chorus on Saturday. His ‘400’ project is a musical portrait of African-American history for the last 400 years. It’s a powerful piece that we are going to make even more powerful and profound in Springfield by incorporating musicians from our local orchestra. It’s our biggest production yet requiring us to get a bigger stage to make room for the nearly 50 people participating in the performance. It’s a ‘don’t miss’ event,” Neville said.

Avery Sharpe’s project, “400 An African American Musical Portrait,” was released in 2019 on JKNM Records. Sharpe decided to mark the 400th year of Africans being brought to the United States shores in Virginia in 1619 as enslaved people with a musical portrait/recording.

Friday night’s musical performances at the Charles Neville Main Stage in the festival’s Stearns Square and Tower

Square Park area will feature well-known local performer Frank Manzi beginning at 5:30 p.m. His performance will be followed by the jazzfunk fusion sounds of Imperial Boxmen and soulful blues artist Shemekia Copeland. The party gets started earlier on Saturday with the Second Line Parade, a New Orleans tradition which began as part of the festival in 2017.

“Second Line Parades in New Orleans are community street parades, very joyous occasions, that stem from the history of jazz funerals. Charles was a guest teacher at the Community Music School and taught the students about New Orleans music and they went on to lead our first parade. Charles died before the 2018 festival and the parade continues in tribute to him and as a celebration of life,” Neville said.

This year’s parade will be led by the Brown Rice Family and the Community Music School of Springfield’s Sonido Musica students and faculty. The parade begins at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday and leaves from Springfield City Hall, dancing it way through the streets until its final destination at the Charles Neville

Main Stage for the kickoff performance at 1 p.m. by the Evan Arntzen Trio.

The complete musical lineup on Saturday at the Charles Neville Main Stage and Urban Roots Stage includes Ron Smith and the Soulful Jazz Trio, TapRoots, Jonathan Barber & Vision Ahead, Jayko Y Su KombolLoko, Avery Sharpe 400 Project, Jonathon Suazo: Ricano, Jane Bunnett and Maqueque, Fabeyon/ Tang Sauce, Breakin’ Battle, Brown Rice Family, The Paradigm Shift, and Delfayo Marsalis & the Uptown Jazz Orchestra.

The festival’s Jazz & Justice series begins on Friday night at 6 p.m. at REEVEX Lab on 270 Bridge St. with a screening of the film “City of Million Dreams - Parading for the Dead in New Orleans.” The acclaimed documentary, directed by Jason Berry, is based on his book which explores New Orleans jazz funerals and second line parades. A question-and-answer period will follow the screening, which is repeated on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. Also taking place at REEVEX from 2-3 p.m. on Saturday will be a workshop with Puerto Rican