{"id":261,"date":"2015-07-13T12:51:39","date_gmt":"2015-07-13T17:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/?p=261"},"modified":"2016-12-09T17:47:39","modified_gmt":"2016-12-09T22:47:39","slug":"2010-saratoga-jazz-festival-33rd-annual-freihofers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/?p=261","title":{"rendered":"2015 Saratoga Jazz Festival &#8211; 38thAnnual Freihofer&#8217;s"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_269\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-269\" style=\"width: 614px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/image1373.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-269\" title=\"image137\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/image1373.jpg\" width=\"614\" height=\"461\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/image1373.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/image1373-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/image1373-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-269\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Al DiMeola at the 33rd Annual Freihofer&#8217;s Saratoga Jazz Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">What do you call a jazz festival that is already well into its third decade that takes place in upstate New York? An easier question will not be asked today, it&#8217;s the Saratoga Jazz Festival <em>naturally<\/em>! Bringing some of the top acts in traditional and more modern jazz\/fusion\/funk to the Capitol Region, this year&#8217;s (the 38th) Jazz Festival was once again a crowd pleaser. Speaking of which, in this time of racial divisiveness it&#8217;s always inspiring to see people of all ages, racial, and ethnic backgrounds having a great time together, listening to some great music!<\/p>\n<p>Taking place on June 26th and 27th of 2015 the Jazz Festival featured the following line up:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Main Stage Acts<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mario Abney<\/li>\n<li>Even Christopher<\/li>\n<li>Taj Mahal<\/li>\n<li>Ahmad Jamal<\/li>\n<li>Al DiMeola<\/li>\n<li>Al Jarreau\/George Duke<\/li>\n<li>Sax For Stax<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Trio of OZ<\/li>\n<li>Stefon Harris<\/li>\n<li>Ann Hampton Callawat<\/li>\n<li>Ramsey Lewis Trio<\/li>\n<li>Afro Cuban All Stars<\/li>\n<li>Gladys Knight<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Gazebo Stage<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>JD Allen Trio<\/li>\n<li>Tomasz Stanko Quartet<\/li>\n<li>Alyssa Graham<\/li>\n<li>Steve Kroon Sextet<\/li>\n<li>Mario Abney<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Hailey Niswanger<\/li>\n<li>Kendrick Scott Oracle<\/li>\n<li>Linda Oh Trio<\/li>\n<li>Trio of OZ<\/li>\n<li>Ralph Lalama<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As you might expect from a concert that features so many different acts in a fairly compressed time frame, the audio quality was varied. While the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) is a wonderful place to spend an afternoon or evening, it&#8217;s not the easiest place to provide high quality sound reinforcement in, due to its open air design. In addition to the concert seating, there is also a large lawn area where people will set up everything from blankets to large car camping tents, and that must be covered as well!<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_278\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-278\" style=\"width: 614px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/image197.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-278 \" title=\"image197\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/image197.jpg\" width=\"614\" height=\"461\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/image197.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/image197-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/image197-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-278\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sax For Stax at the 33rd Annual Freihofer&#8217;s Saratoga Jazz Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>While it would be easy to be overly critical about the sound quality, it&#8217;s important to note that the <em>crowd<\/em> certainly seemed to enjoy the various acts on stage, and if the bass might have been a bit weak at times, or the snare drum didn&#8217;t really crack the way it might have, it didn&#8217;t seem to interfere with anybody&#8217;s enjoyment of the music&#8230;except for one act in particular&#8230;and that was Al Jarreau\/George Duke. Their show began with George Duke and Co. playing through a few songs. They sounded brilliant, and they grooved hard! That all changed when Al Jarreau came out on to the stage. Living legend that he may well be, I&#8217;ve never seen worse microphone technique by any singer.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_279\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-279\" style=\"width: 461px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/image1811.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-279\" title=\"image181\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/image1811.jpg\" width=\"461\" height=\"614\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/image1811.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/image1811-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 461px) 100vw, 461px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-279\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Al Jarreau at the 33rd Annual Freihofer&#8217;s Saratoga Jazz Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Unfortunately, the front of house engineer was unable to cope with the wildly varying vocal level that Al produced, due to his microphone sometimes being 1&#8243; away from his mouth&#8230;and sometimes being 2&#8242; from his mouth! That said, a combination of moderate compression with a hard limiter in the signal chain would have prevented the absurd variations in the volume of the vocal. I am happy to report that none of the other acts I observed had any issues that were nearly as drastic!<\/p>\n<p>I look forward to attending next year&#8217;s Saratoga Jazz Festival, watch this space for the upcoming dates of 34th Annual Freihofer&#8217;s Saratoga Jazz Festival!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">What do you call a jazz festival that is already well into its third decade that takes place in upstate New York? An easier question will not be asked today, it&#8217;s the Saratoga Jazz Festival naturally! Bringing some of the top acts in traditional and more modern jazz\/fusion\/funk to the Capitol Region, this year&#8217;s (the 38th) Jazz Festival was once&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/?p=261\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":278,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concert-reviews","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/image197.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":567,"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions\/567"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}