The City of Jacksonville has done it again this year. They pulled in top Jazz Musicians to play downtown on Memorial Day weekend. The city sets up three different stages in a 3-4 blocks area right in the heart of the city, it is a great venue to listen to Jazz right downtown. We drove from Daytona Beach on Saturday late afternoon to see and listen to Rick Braun, Kirk Whalum and Norman Brown on the Swingin’ Stage at the corner of Main Street and Monroe Street. After that we walked over one block to listen to Euge Groove at the Groovin’ Stage and ended the night listening to the YellowJackets. Euge Groove was the absolute best out of the three groups although they were all excellent.
The entire weekend of Jazz downtown is Free which is quite remarkable and the foods and drinks are all very reasonably priced. It just seems the City, the vendors and traffic control all try very hard to make it an economical weekend of excellent Jazz. We have never been to a city where they allow you to bring your own food, drinks, cooler’s and just about anything else and sit and listen to tremendous Jazz. There is plenty of parking in the downtown parking lots and as we left that evening, we could see that many cars which were in attendance had come from out of state like Georgia and South Carolina to spend the weekend enjoying the wonderful Jazz. If you have never been before, mark your calendar and make sure you plan to go next year if you are a Jazz enthusiast.