Arts

Berklee Beantown Jazz Festival 2016

by . .
Thursday Sep 29, 2016

Sunny and pleasant early-autumn weather set the perfect stage the South End's summer swan song, the 2016 Berklee Beantown Jazz Festival, which rocked Columbus Avenue between Massachusetts Avenue and Burke Street with almost 20 acts playing a wide range of rhythms and styles including jazz, blues, funk, Latin music, and more.

According to Berklee College of Music spokesman Nick Balkin, approximately 40,000 people flocked to the festival, which offered music for a wide variety of ages and tastes on three stages as well as a street-level, participatory performance by music educator Marcos Santos and his music and dance group, Bloco Afro-Brasil. For children, the festival reprised its popular instrument "petting zoo" and music-education sessions from Berklee's KidsJam program, a free, weekly, early-childhood introduction to music that is part of Berklee's substantial community-engagement effort.

Dozens of vendors and exhibitors fed hungry listeners and dancers, sold all manner of jewelry, crafts and services and raised awareness of local community-service groups.

At the Beantown stage near Burke Street, the Edmar Colón Quartet, led by Colón on tenor sax, put their own improvisational twist on plena, a traditional style of music in Colón's native Puerto Rico and other familiar genres. On the Berklee Stage between Massachusetts Avenue and Northampton Street, Behind These Eyes, a group paying tribute to influential trombonist, Berklee alumnus and jazz-improvisation educator Hal Crook, offered sharp performances on some of Crook's best-loved jazz-fusion recordings, and at the Capital One stage in the Carter Playground, an Al Jarreau Tribute Band featuring Berklee voice professor Jeff Ramsay, who has worked directly with Jarreau, credibly interpreted a variety of Jarreau favorites.


Debo Ray


Edmar Colón



Al JarreauTribute Band