“Jazz at the Lake,” the Lake George Arts Project’s intimate, authentic jazz festival held annually in Shepard Park (except, of course, during the very few years when it has rained) will return for its 40th edition September 13 to 15 with a stellar lineup of bands and musicians.
“As we celebrate forty years of bringing world-class jazz to Lake George, we are incredibly proud to present a lineup that reflects the festival’s rich history while also pushing the boundaries of contemporary jazz,” said Tanya Tobias, the Arts Project’s executive director.
Among the highlights of the festival will be a September 15 tribute to the late Paul Pines, the author of several books and the co-founder of the jazz festival. Daniel Kelly, the composer and musician who now curates the festival, will lead his group in a performance of compositions based on poems by Pines, read by actor and storyteller David Gonzales.
“We’re celebrating Paul,” said Kelly. “Paul was both a mentor to me and a dear friend, so it has been a very meaningful experience to be in conversation with him and his work.”
Although this song cycle was inspired by the jazz festival’s 40th anniversary, it is not the first of Kelly’s work to be based on Pines’ writing.
Prior to Pines’ death in 2018, after he was diagnosed with lung cancer, Kelly communicated with him through recordings he made of himself reading Pines’ poems over piano improvisations, which, Kelly said, “Paul was moved and touched by.”
Those exercises were the seeds of a multi-movement suite based on poems from Pines’ 20217 volume, “Gathering Sparks,” which Kelly composed for a chamber jazz ensemble and which was performed in Brooklyn in 2018.
According to Kelly, the music of jazz was intertwined with Pines’ life and work – as a poet and novelist, as a therapist who believed that improvisation granted musicians access to the collective unconscious, and even as the owner of a jazz club, the legendary Tin Palace, which he opened on New York’s Lower East Side in the early 1970s.
As the owner of a jazz club and as the curator of the jazz festival, “Paul booked artists that just interested him regardless of the style they were working in. I feel the same way,” said Kelly. “I’m booking people whose music captures my imagination. I’m very passionate about all these bands, some of which I’ve been listening to for years.”
A musician who came to Kelly’s attention only recently, rising star Jahari Stampley, opens “Jazz at the Lake” on Friday evening at 6 pm. The Chicago pianist whose band includes his mother, the Grammy-nominated saxophonist, pianist and bass player D-Erania Stampley is “a ball of energy, and audiences can really feel the excitement of that,” said Kelly.
Saturday’s lineup includes bands led by vocalist Michael Mayo, saxophonist Ben Wendel, drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. and, on Saturday at 8 pm, the singer and pianist Nicole Zuraitis, whose self-released 2023 album, “How Love Begins,” won the Grammy award for Best Jazz Vocal Album of the year.
“She communicates such warmth and charisma from the stage, it’s a joy to watch her perform,” said Kelly, who noted that Zuraitis last performed at the jazz festival in 2019. “I’m really excited to have her back for this victory lap.”
Among the bands performing Sunday is a quintet led by bassist, composer and vocalist Linda May Han Oh.
“She’s just a tremendous player and an example of the level of talent that we will be presenting at Lake George this year,” this Kelly.
The temporary stage that was installed after the band shell was destroyed by fire earlier this year will be replaced by a tent, which Kelly said was better suited to the needs of the musicians.
For the third consecutive year, “Jazz at the Lake” will expand beyond the bounds of Shepard Park into the community and on to the lake itself. Bands will play at restaurants and cafes throughout Lake George Village and, on Sunday, Sept. 15, on a jazz cruise aboard the Lake George Steamboat Company’s Mohican.
“Jazz at the Lake” is organized by the Lake George Arts Project, sponsored by Kenneth and Susan Gruskin and the Gruskin Group and is supported by the Town of Lake George, the Village of Lake George, the New York State Council on the Arts and members of the Lake George Arts Project, among others.
