Jazz & Beyond opens with mad hat trick

Hot August jazz comes calling again this year in Carson City via Jazz & Beyond, a 17-day festival that starts Aug. 1 with a Mad Hatter Garden Party at the Governor’s Mansion.

The multi-faceted event put on by multi-talented musicians, which is backed by the participating Mile High Jazz Band, features jazz and other musical genres throughout the community. Included on the listings are the musical fare at the Nevada Sesquicentennial Fair at Fuji Park and Fairgrounds the first and second festival days.

Opening night listings include The Corky Bennett Trio for the garden party, the official opening event and one of the few requiring tickets, which starts that Friday at 5 p.m. and runs until 7:30 p.m. Cost is $35 in advance, $40 at the door. At 8 p.m. that same evening, The Comstock Cowboys country group headlines the fair at Fuji Park. Tickets for that performance are $15.

“We only have three ticketed events that we’re putting on,” said David Bugli, leader of the Mile High Jazz Band, though he said the Jazz & Beyond listings will include other coinciding musical performance such as the Comstock Cowboys. The rest of Jazz & Beyond is provided free of charge.

“We’re doing a number of events in conjunction with the Nevada 150 fair,” he said. Along with the fair headliner, five others are listed, some of them in conjunction with the Brewery Arts Center (BAC). Three of those are on the BAC stage at the fair Saturday, Aug. 2.

Sons of Slide Mountain, a bluegrass act, performs at noon that Saturday at the BAC’s Fuji fair stage. At 4 p.m. that day, Lynne Colvig Latin Jazz is on the same stage. At 9 p.m. there, The St. Christopher Project is expected to perform a Tom Waits’ jazz-blues-rock set on that same fairgrounds stage.

The same day RSVG Tantalus, a video game jazz band, is slated for the fair’s Main Stage at 2:30 p.m. The Reno Jazz Orchestra with Jackie Landrum appears on that same stage starting at 7:30 p.m.

Other acts on that first Saturday of Jazz & Beyond include A Class Act, Farmers Market downtown, 8:30 a.m.; Judith & Rocky: A Little Jazz, A Little Latin in the Carson Mall, 1 p.m.; Sloe Djinn Fez on the Wine Walk, Yaple’s Ballroom, 2:30 p.m.; and Colin Ross Acoustic Duo on the Wine Walk, Purple Avocado, also at 2:30 p.m.

That first weekend includes Sunday fare on Aug. 3 such as Me & Bobby McGee at Sierra Place, 2:30 p.m.; Letting Go Jazz Show, featuring vocal jazz, at the Legislative Plaza downtown, 4:30 p.m., and the Graham Marshall Band at the Capitol Amphitheater, also downtown, at 6 p.m.

Bugli stressed most of the events are free, but the other two ticketed performances put on by Jazz & Beyond are: on Aug. 9, a Speakeasy Dance Party at the BAC downtown, which runs from 7 to 10 p.m. that Saturday evening, $10 a head; and on Aug. 11 in the Carson City Community Center, at 7:30 p.m., a performance featuring Bill Watrous, trombonist, with the Mile High Jazz Band and a jazz combo. The cost for that is $15.

Bugli, who plays trombone as well as other instruments, said he’s interested in the Waldrous performance. He said Waldrous is “an excellent, excellent trombonist.” That ticketed event will be preceded, from 2:30 to 3:45 p.m. the same day, by a trombone master class put on in the center by Waldrous.

Among other festival highlights are John Shipley presenting a History of the Beatles in the BAC’s ballroom at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 5, and a Beatles Flashback band performing at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 6 at the Community Center, according to Bugli. The festival finale comes at 6 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 17, with No Comprende at the Capitol Amphitheater.