This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
It's easy to see what makes jazz festivals so popular: Jazz music makes people happy.
Maybe it's the musicians, who perhaps more than any others play because they love what they do. Maybe it's the variety of styles that fit under the jazz umbrella. Or maybe it's a chance to settle back and let the sounds wash over your senses.
Friday, the opening night of the Park City Jazz Festival, exemplified those reasons, as three very different genre-defying acts filled two stages with music.
Pancho Sanchez sat sweating in the sun for the first half of his concert, but it didn't seem to bother him -- much -- as he led Caribbean- and Latin-flavored rhythms with his bongos and vocals. The songs were full of smart rhythms and harmonies with his band of keyboard, sax, trombone, trumpet, drums and multitalented fellow percussionist Alfred Ortiz. Sometimes the songs were fast and hard -- "Do It!" the title track on Sanchez's latest CD, was enough to make your breastbone thrum -- while others were languorous, maybe more so because of the heat.
During those slower pieces, chatter throughout the venue made it clear that some in the audience considered the festival simply pleasant background music for their conversations about private schools and plastic surgery, often on cell phones. Why go to a concert if you're not going to listen to the music?
A few listeners got into the true spirit of things, standing and dancing. That number multiplied twentyfold when Sanchez paid tribute to one of his favorite musicians, James Brown, with a Latin version of the classic jive tune "Out of Sight."
By the time headliner Taj Mahal hit the stage, things had cooled off and people were loosened up enough to dance a little more. How could they not, when the bluesman sang lyrics like "Shake that butt"? Mahal, whose repertoire has more silly voices than a Looney Tunes cartoon, mimicked a middle-aged female WASP talking to another: "Oh my god, Kathleen! I didn't know you could dance that way!"
One of Taj Mahal's greatest strengths is his friendliness toward both the music and his audience. For his finale (before he picked up a banjo for the encore), Mahal sang a fast-paced "The Blues Is All Right," and as he had earlier in the concert, he had people enthusiastically singing along with his "heeey" and "whoooah." "I don't want you to be all concert-style and hold it all in," he said.
One of the best reasons to go to a music festival is the chance to hear not only big names but also lesser-known acts. The most intriguing performance on Friday may have been Katia Moraes and Sambaguru. Dancing and singing music from her native Brazil, Moraes filled the smaller second stage with peppy rhythms and full-bodied, throaty vocals.
She was handed an unfortunate layout (facing perpendicular to the main stage, which meant anyone listening in front had to stand with one foot downhill from the other), but that didn't stop her from insisting that people dance and from lavishing energy on her performance.
The salsa/samba/Brazilian folk music combination was the sort of music you don't hear just anywhere. Too bad it, like Sanchez, was to some extent wasted on an oblivious audience.
Jazz fest punches crowd's dance card
* What: Park City Jazz Festival.
* Where: Deer Valley.
* When: Friday night.
* Tickets: $45, available for today's performances at the Deer Valley box office. Gates open at 12:30 p.m. today.
* The bottom line: This year's festival succeeded in bringing in a range of talent and genre, making opening night a smorgasbord of sounds. The festival concludes tonight with the headliner trio of Bela Fleck, Stanley Clarke and Jean-Luc Ponty.