Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival - Prelude to a Recap

I'm going to write a whole report for Pittsburgh Current on the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival, which took place last week. In the meantime, I figured I'd do a teaser with a few very Pittsburgh-centric photos from last Friday. 

Last Friday, the festival hosted a Jazz Crawl in Downtown Pittsburgh, where several venues presented local musicians during Happy Hour. The Original Oyster House - a Pittsburgh institution - hosted the Tony Campbell Quartet, with Mr. Campbell on alto saxophone, Dr. James Johnson II on piano, Tony DePaolis on bass and John Korpiel on drums. There was no better way to dig this group but to take them in while having a Famous Fish Sandwich for dinner, which is just what I did.




But there was more to the set. Fred Pugh, who is something of a catalyst around town when it comes to music events (he was the one who got me to the Crawford Grill in the early '00s and he has his own FP3 Promotions now) got up and sang "Bye Bye Blackbird" and a few others in his rich voice. It was a great way to start the weekend. After thinking about doing this for several years, I finally requested to have the whole weekend off to check out the event.

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