Providence Jazz & Blues Festival mixes styles

by Vaughn Watson
The Providence Journal

The artists performing this weekend at the Providence Jazz & Blues Festival are longtime names in their fields.

On Saturday, The Debra Mann Trio, Roy Ayers, Paul Geremia, Ben Allison and Cary Bell perform at Waterplace Park. On Sunday, the artists are Tiny Joe & the All Stars Family Band, Chris Combette, Dominique Eade and Ahmad Jamal.

The festival's scheduling is designed to show several sides of blues and jazz. Festival goers on Saturday, for instance, will see both Bell, a blues harmonica player, and Geremia, a country-folk artist who plays an acoustic roots style influenced by the blues.

The festival could also draw the younger crowd the jazz scene is seeking. On of the sponsors, The Providence Black Repertory Company, plays host Friday nights to Round Midnight,' a hip-hop workshop. The teen and 20-something crowd who check out 'Round Midnight are likely to know the music of Roy Ayers.

Ayers is an acid-jazz artist who in the '90s gained a reputation in jazz and hip-hop circles for his jazz fusion and pop experimentalist style.

Today, Ayers is among the jazz artists most frequently cited in the liner notes of rap albums. Snippets of his original work - a free-flowing collage of horns, vibes and percussion - are heard on albums recorded by such artists as R&B/hip-hop singer Mary J. Blige, pop rappers DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, the hip-hop jazz fusion rapper Guru and R&B singer Whitney Houston. Ayers performs at 3 p.m. on Saturday.

An hour earlier, Debra Mann sings silky lite-jazz piano ballads with touches of a sprightly jump-blues sound. Her style strives to knit the serenity-through-music vibe sang by Diana Krall. And like Krall, Mann, of Providence, also plays piano.