Center City Jazz Fest expands, looks ahead

At a City Hall ceremony earlier this month to open Jazz Appreciation Month, Mayor Nutter disclosed that, when he's in transit, he insists that the radio be tuned to music, not news. "I get enough news, some of it not particularly great," he joked. "I listen to music all day long in my vehicle. Some people are all news all the time; I'm all music all the time."

Hardly empty claims meant to pander to a room full of musicians and jazz boosters, the mayor's claims are backed up by his actions. Last spring, he made more than a token appearance at the Center City Jazz Festival, not only sticking around for the duration of the daylong event but insisting on paying for his own ticket.

"I was just going to give him a ticket, but he wanted to buy it," recalled festival founder and artistic director Ernest Stuart. "I thought he would just show up, shake a couple of hands and move on, but he stayed for the entire festival. In fact, he came, stayed for the first half, ran out to perform a couple of marriages, then came back and finished out the day. He was extremely excited to see this particular niche in the city thriving, even if only for this moment."

In only its third year, last year's Center City Jazz Festival was a major success, selling out early in the day and featuring a wide range of artists playing to packed rooms well into the evening.

This year's festival will go on all-day Saturday, with acts playing Center City venues Fergie's Pub, Franky Bradley's, Chris' Jazz Cafe, Milkboy Philadelphia, and Time Restaurant.

Stuart, who started the festival in 2012 on his own initiative, raising more than $17,000 through a Kickstarter fund-raising campaign, sees that growing success as vindication for his goal of breathing new life into the city's jazz community. "I think the fact that it was sold out should signal to everyone that there is a desire for a healthy jazz scene in Philadelphia," he says. "I'm glad that I could be a part of the mending of that scene, which has been battered."

New York-based drummer Tomas Fujiwara, a bandmate of Stuart's in the Bhangra brass band Red Baraat, performed in last year's festival with his collective trio Thumbscrew. Given the wide range of music, much of which skewed in a more straight-ahead or soul-jazz direction, he didn't know what kind of reception to expect for his more avant-garde offerings.

"I could tell when we started playing that a lot of these people hadn't heard music like this before," says Fujiwara, who will return this year with his quintet, the Hook Up. "But the energy from the audience was amazing. Whatever their musical tastes were, they were fully engaged, enthusiastic and open. You could just feel the positivity, and I think a huge part of that is the environment that Ernest cultivates."

As in the past, the festival will feature overlapping sets throughout the day at a cluster of venues on or around Sansom Street, accessible with a single pass. For its fourth incarnation, the festival will add a fifth stage at Franky Bradley's, which will celebrate the key role that organ jazz has played in the city's jazz identity. While Stuart's connections have added a few non-local artists to the roster, such as Fujiwara, Latin Jazz trombonist Luis Bonilla, and world-jazz trio Surface to Air, much of the lineup remains Philly-centric. Highlights will include guitarist Matt Davis' chamber-jazz ensemble Aerial Photograph, tenor sax giant Bootsie Barnes, collective big band the Fresh Cut Orchestra, and Balkan-brass party band the West Philadelphia Orchestra.

Stuart is already looking to next year's festival, with an ultimate goal of transforming the event into a major citywide event, possibly sprawling out beyond the confines of Center City and expanding the timeline to a number of days or a week. "I would like to continue looking for ways to make the festival bigger," he says, despite the demands of being a working musician as well.

"We all have different hats that we wear. I feel like I have this other side of my brain that can be creative within a more business-like environment, that sees problems around me and tries to fix them. I don't know where that drive comes from, but I respect this city and I've taken so much from it that I feel like I should try to make it better or cooler."

1 to 7 p.m. Saturday

Tickets: $15-$20. Information: www.ccjazzfest.com

Chris' Jazz Café, 1421 Sansom St., 215-568-3131

Time, 1315 Sansom St., 215-385-4800

Fergie's Pub, 1214 Sansom St., 215-928-8118

Franky Bradley's, 1320 Chancellor St., 215-735-0735

MilkBoy Philly, 1100 Chestnut St., 215-925-6455