An un-jazz Interlude

Last weekend was New York’s Winter JazzFest. Being in Kansas City, though,  I, needless to say but nevertheless, missed it.

We spent our time in a separate spectrum of music, celebrating my husband’s birthday with a snow-speckled night out on the town. The Grand Marquis played the stylish Kill Devil Club, then we headed to The Brick for a one-two punch of Phantoms of the Opry and an expanded Victor and Penny.

But I was excited to see our buddy Krystle Warren and The Faculty (which includes two other former UMKC students, Solomon Dorsey and David Moore) in the NY WJF line-up. In fact, TimeOut New York named the group as one of their “five sets not to miss.”

What’s more, her set was followed by guitarists Julian Lage and Nels Cline (whom you may be familiar with as the leader of the Nels Cline Singers or perhaps his side project, a little rock group called Wilco).

You can read a few of the overviews here, here and here.

Lage, by the way, is one of the headliners – along with Deborah Brown and Eldar – at the Jazz Winterlude festival at Johnson County Community College this weekend.

I’m missing this one, too, though most of the groups are local and play in the area, just not all in one place, for FREE! Winterlude was great last year and the line-up looks stellar again.