Last year’s line-up would be hard to match, with such headliners as Patricia Barber, Stefon Harris, Terrell Stafford, Jane Bunnett’s Spirits of Havana, and the Yellowjackets, among others. The weather was only partly co-operative--a torrential downpour delayed things a bit on Saturday afternoon—but the main stage’s new location on the campus green (“The Pentacrest”) offered some shade and pleasant surroundings; the concession booths lining adjacent streets provided global treats—everything from smoked fish curry, falafel, and gazpacho to the obligatory roasted corn and fresh lemonade.

The 2005 line-up reflects some minor down-scaling in the number of national headliners but no lesser commitment to presenting a wide range of music that will appeal to both wizened aficionados and the newly initiated, from traditional and Latin to modern mainstream and avant garde. The schedule has shifted to a later start and finish on Saturday, giving many travelers the option of driving in Saturday for a 2 pm start on the main stage, with the last set (the one and only Kenny Garrett) at 10 pm. The center for lodging and late night jams will again be the Sheraton Hotel and bar, Morgan’s.

Friday Night Kick-Off (July 1)

For the second year, the Festival will get underway Friday night (July 1), as a downtown “wild and crazy street dance.” At 6:30 p.m. on the Fountain Stage, the combined high schools’ United Jazz Ensemble will kick-off the fun. These students are members of the award-winning jazz bands led by Bill Pringle and Rich Medd; students from City and West High Schools have participated in the festival for ten years. The grooving FunkDaddies follow at 7:30 pm, and a jam session at Morgan’s Bar in the Sheraton will keep toes tapping well into the night.

Main Stage, Saturday (July 2)

Ashanti (2 pm). Featuring the cool Brazilian sounds of bassist/vocalist Gabriel Espinosa, Ashanti’s Latin vibes get the day’s programming off to a warm and breezy start. Based in Pella, Iowa, this 6-piece band’s unique repertoire includes bossas, sambas, cha-cha-chas, merengues, boleros, and other traditional Latin rhythms, as well as swing and big-band standards, ballads, and red-hot jazz tunes. Ashanti has opened shows for the legendary Havana-based ¡Cubanismo! and jazz vocalist Kevin Mahogany, and has performed with such diverse musicians as Peruvian drummer and percussionist Alex Acuña; Grammy award-winning vibist Dave Samuels, and drummer Antonio Sanchez. Said guitarist Gayla Drake Paul, “The textures of music and rhythm are deep, the ensemble is tight, the harmonies sweet, and they play with infectious joy and delight.”

JUISE Big Band (4 pm). Jazz at the University of Iowa Summer Ensemble (JUISE), formerly known as the Summer Festival Jazz Ensemble, is now in its third season. Organized as an opportunity for local professionals to get together and read music they all enjoyed, JUISE has grown into a public performance group, but without losing any of the fun. John Rapson, a member of the band and head of the jazz studies program at the University of Iowa School of Music, explained: "This band has been fun for all of us to play in during the summers. We started out as a 'reading' band, but now JUISE has become more like 'serious fun.' None of us would give this band up -- the literature is so great and we look forward to hearing each other play. We pretty much knock each other out.” Other musicians in JUISE include the band directors from both Iowa City high schools, current and former UI faculty, members of the popular "Orquesta de jazz y salsa Alto Maiz" (High Corn Jazz and Salsa Orchestra), and other local professional musicians. The rhythm section includes Iowa City Jazz Festival founder and director, guitarist Steve Grismore. The band’s repertoire includes Duke Ellington, Carla Bley, and of course, John Rapson.

Kim Richmond/Clay Jenkins with Reggie Thomas (6 pm). Los Angeles-based multi-reed player Kim Richmond has been involved in nearly every facet of the professional music industry as a player and as a composer/arranger. Playing alto, soprano, tenor and baritone saxes, clarinet, bass clarinet, and flutes, he has been a member of the orchestras of Stan Kenton, Louis Bellson, Bob Florence, Clare Fischer, Bill Holman, and Vinny Golia. Richmond is also a committed educator, as adjunct professor in the Jazz Studies department of USC and on the faculty of numerous jazz camps. His recording Refractions with the Kim Richmond Jazz Orchestra earned a Grammy nomination. Richmond’s partner on a new recording (Cross Waves), trumpeter Clay Jenkins is an Associate Professor of Jazz Studies at the Eastman School of Music. An alum of the Stan Kenton Orchestra, Jenkins spent some of his career in the LA area, where he played and toured with the Harry James, Buddy Rich, and Count Basie Orchestras. He’s also a charter member of the trumpet section of the Clayton/Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. In addition to his collaborations with Kim Richmond on three recordings, he has recorded with such artists as Milt Jackson, Ray Brown, Kurt Elling, and Eric Reed. Joining Richmond and Jenkins will be East St. Louis native pianist Reggie Thomas, now on the Music and Black Studies faculty of Southern Illinois University. Thomas is a veteran performer, currently working mainly with big bands and with his wife in the Reggie and Marda Thomas Jazz Ensemble.

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey (8 pm). Only in Iowa City can you go from big band to new millennium improvisation in an eye blink. What started out ten years ago in Tulsa as an octet has evolved into the revolutionary trio of Brian Haas on piano, Reed Mathis on bass, and Jason Smart on drums. Part of the evolution of their focus on improvised music has been their new all-acoustic recording, Walking With Giants, which “illustrates [Jacob Fred’s] skill to blend and weave improvisational lines without resorting to simplistic rock or heavy drum renderings” (Al Hunter, Philadelphia Daily News). Despite their appeal to rock-oriented youth, JFJO is "rooted in the jazz tradition," Mathis said. "Our biggest influences are Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington."

Photo by Andrea Canter

Kenny Garrett Quartet (10 pm). Alto sax ace Kenny Garrett has been topping the jazz charts for the past decade plus. Considered one of the most influential jazz musicians of his generation, Garrett grew up in Detroit surrounded by the sounds of jazz, R&B and gospel. He picked up the saxophone around age nine or ten, inspired by his father who played tenor. After high school, he had planned to attend Berklee in Boston, but then the Duke Ellington Orchestra came to town, needing a sax player. Garrett became a regular member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra (directed by Mercer Ellington) in 1978, and soon moved to New York to play with the Mel Lewis Orchestra and Dannie Richmond Quintet. After releasing his first recording in 1984 and stints with Art Blakey, Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw, Garrett joined Miles Davis (1986-91). Of his influences, Garrett cites John Coltrane in particular: “I love his voice, his control, his spirituality and his message.”

Now celebrating ten years as a Warner Brothers artist, Garrett has released 8 recordings on the label and has had multiple Grammy nominations. In 1996, Rolling Stone named him "Hot Jazz Artist" and the Down Beat Readers' Poll named him "Alto Saxist of the Year," unseating Phil Woods. Although he has played some fusion and hip hop (collaborating with rapper Guru), Kenny Garrett is primarily a “straight ahead” artist recognized as being one of the last of a generation of artists to work his way up the ranks in the bands of other great musicians. On his spring tour, Garrett has traveled in the splendid company of pianist Carlos McKinney, bassist Chris Funn, and drummer Rondal Bruner. Noted the Washington Post, "Someone should post a storm warning prior to a Kenny Garrett concert."