Change - The Only Constant in the Universe

Always try to remember this one thing about jazz festivals that are scheduled months in advance . . . "Line up is subject to change."

We had learned several months ago that our good friend Josh Ragsdale from Pecos Flavors Winery and The Liberty, Inc., was in contact with Poncho Sanchez and was working on booking him for an evening of Latin Jazz to help us kick off our 2014 Roswell Jazz Festival.  Negotiations went back and forth, and forth and back.  It looked like this was really going to happen, so we started informing our community, and social media followers.

Well, as promised, there will indeed be an evening of Latin Jazz at The Liberty, Inc. on 10/8.  However, the line up has changed.  Instead of Poncho Sanchez, we're excited to announce that Latin jazz pianist Monty Alexander will be headlining that performance!

Also, we had reported earlier that Rob Rio would be in town during late July or early August to boogie-woogie the heck out of the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art's new piano.  We're still planning that event, but it looks like it will be sometime in mid to late August.

That's all the "changes" for now.  There will probably be more after we get the full line-up posted.  :D

Growing our YouTube Channel

Thanks to local musician/composer/videographer, Ted Schooley, we have several hours worth of video from the 8th Annual Roswell Jazz Festival.  I have recently begun editing these videos (most of which run over 40 minutes) into song length clips.

This afternoon, I posted both the full 42+ minute video and a collection of 7 song length clips from the first set of the El Paso Youth Jazz Ensemble's performance from our "Honoring Youth In Jazz" program at Anderson Museum Of Contemporary Art to the Roswell Jazz Festival's YouTube channel.  I also posted one of the song length clips to our Facebook videos collection.  

It's my intention to continue with similar video postings from the other venues of last year's Festival at least a couple of times per month as we approach October and the 9th Annual Roswell Jazz Festival.

Reboot

Has it really been since 9 months since our last post?  Tsk tsk.  If we're going to make Blogger work for us we I really must do a better job of keeping this updated.

There are exciting things in the works for the Roswell Jazz Festival.  For one thing, if you click our link, you'll notice we're in the process of having our website modernized by the talented Mike Barnes of SEO-Alien.

Our wonderful friends at the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art have asked that we invite Boogie Woogie man Rob Rio to be the first artist to tickle the ivories of their soon-to-be-delivered new grand piano!  The date for this performance has yet to be determined, but it will be during late July or early August.

We're also excited to announce that our annual Festival will be starting one day earlier this year thanks to a collaborative effort with The Liberty, Inc.  On October 8, they will be hosting an evening of Latin Jazz featuring Poncho Sanchez.  

Our closing performance on Sunday, October 12 will feature a cavalcade of pianists putting the Anderson Museum's new instrument through it's paces.

I promise to return soon with news on the artists we've invited to perform at this year's Roswell Jazz Festival and links to some videos I hope to begin uploading this weekend.

 

Six and a half weeks out

We're less than seven weeks from the beginning of the 8th annual Roswell Jazz Festival and although we've hit a few snags along the way it looks to me as if it's going to be (in today's parlance) off the chain.  In my younger days growing up in western Massachusetts we'd have called it wicked awesome.

I believe all of us at RJF are most excited at the prospect of seeing young Geoff Gallante take the stage.  I took trumpet lessons from 6th through 8th grade and by the end of that period I couldn't play nearly as well as Geoff could at age 4.  So far I've Geoff's magical horn him on YouTube, but today I ordered an autographed copy of his debut cd  "Boy on the Moon".

Also, we've had exciting news from our artistic director, Michael Francis.  He's now 99 and 44 one hundredths percent sure that sax master, Yosvany Terry will be making a special guest appearance in our "Latino con Sabor" set at the Sally Port Ballroom on Friday, October 11th.

There will be a number of other new faces appearing at this year's Festival, and of course some artists who have become such an integral part of RJF that we consider them part of our extended family.

I'd better close now so I can head back over to our Facebook page and create "Events".  -- Scott

Testing the waters.

Hello,
I'm Scott and I'm the social media coordinator for Roswell Jazz Festival.  I volunteered for this position on Labor Day of 2012 when I attended a Dixie Land Jazz performance hosted by the RJF.  I've been running www.facebook.com/RoswellJazzFestival ever since, and I began a YouTube channel shortly after the 7th Annual Roswell Jazz Festival.  Lately I've been experimenting with other ways to get exposure for the RJF such as Twitter, Google +, StumbleUpon, and now Blogger.  If I can get this figured out you'll shortly be seeing updates about the upcoming 8th Annual RJF which will run from October 10 - 13.