Every year, the Rochester International Jazz Festival assembles a thoughtful lineup from around the world. But this year’s New Orleans contingent deserves particular attention.
From Galactic’s Parcel 5 performance on June 25 to clarinet virtuoso Doreen Ketchens and pianist-composer Kyle Roussel, the festival is offering a snapshot of where New Orleans music has been and where it may be next.
Galactic, at 9 p.m. on Parcel 5, is the band to hear not only for a good time but also for a window into where New Orleans music is headed. Rain or shine, Galactic will bring the energy.
So how did a festival more than 1,000 miles from the Crescent City become such a consistent showcase for New Orleans artists?
“New Orleans is the soul of American music,” said festival artistic director John Nugent. “Jazz is America’s only true art form that we’ve given to the world. And I think we’ve presented 50-60, maybe more, New Orleans-based artists over the years.”
“The spirit of, of creative improvised music known as jazz, to me, emanates from New Orleans, and it’s everything that music in our country has evolved from. So it’s important to me as a festival producer to bring the core music here as much as possible.”
I study New Orleans music and collect jazz in earnest. So I set out to speak with this year’s artists in hopes of better understanding what keeps drawing Rochester back to the Crescent City. And I’ve been watching crowds respond to them all week.
DOREEN KETCHENS
Want to see one of the greatest clarinet players in jazz? She will be here June 26 and June 27 with her quartet.
Doreen Ketchens has spent decades performing on the streets of New Orleans while also touring internationally. But her sound was forged on the street.
Q: What’s the street tradition teach musicians that they really can’t learn anywhere else?
Ketchens: Humbleness of all things because, um, you know, it teaches you to respect your audience and to give your audience what it wants as opposed to what you necessarily want to play.
Because we play on the street and we got to make people — people that aren’t really coming to see us — got to make them stop. You gotta make them listen, enjoy and give us money, you know. It’s quite a feat. When you get good at doing that, you realize it’s because you’re catering to your audience. Of course. … For me, because I played clubs, you know, where people were nursing a $14 drink — you know what I’m saying? — and talking all over you and stuff like that, you know, but I’m not into that. I’m really into just captivating people, just catching them and just holding them in the palm of my hands, then sending them on a roller coaster and then releasing them, setting them free. You know?”
KYLE ROUSSEL
Some of the most exciting New Orleans music recently has come from a multi-instrumentalist with strong chops and an intellectual approach to exploring music (the music grooves, too).
Kyle Roussel will play the festival with his quartet June 26 and solo on June 27.
Q: At what point did you realize the New Orleans tradition wasn’t just influencing you, but you were becoming a key part of it?
Roussel: “The minute I started traveling all over the world, which was kind of early for me. I started really traveling at 19. That was really my eye-opening experience, to encounter that things that I grew up doing and things that I grew up seeing and being a part of in New Orleans that I thought were norms — were not norms in other places of the world. And that a lot of the people that I was surrounded by were really special and unique in, in their skills, and that’s just musically, personally and, you know, in terms of culture. It took me comparing myself to the rest of the world to see that this is not normal. This (type of musical community) is not available everywhere.”
BONERAMA
Fan-favorite brass band Bonerama was back this year for an energetic set on opening weekend.
Mark Mullins, a band founder and trombonist:
“The trombone is an integral part of the New Orleans tailgate sound, the New Orleans traditional jazz band or New Orleans brass bands or even New Orleans Dixieland bands, and all three of those things are different to me, a little bit, you know? The trombone element, a sliding instrument, a fretless instrument down there, doing that old, gut bucket, raw, just low growl and stuff that other instruments just don’t really do quite the same way. And it sort of speaks of New Orleans’ way of life a little bit, or the culture down there. We take things a little easy. We’re relaxed, you know. …The trombone somewhat represents that in the style and can be kind of sloppy sometimes at times, if you want it to be, and it somehow sound-wise kind of emulates what New Orleans is. It’s raw, it’s, it’s sloppy … but it can also be beautiful at the same time.”
TROMBONE SHORTY
The classic Rochester Jazz Fest performance often gets delivered by Troy Andrews and the globally successful sound he has perfected over the years with his band. Catch his show. Trombone Shorty is a pillar of New Orleans music, a hitmaker and a worthy representative of the artistry flowing out of NOLA. He has been a Rochester Jazz Fest favorite for well over a decade.
GALACTIC
This band has spent three decades blending its city’s traditions with funk, rock, jazz and modern influences.
Audience With the Queen, released in 2025, speaks to what New Orleans audiences and musicians value: collaboration, tradition and creative risk-taking. The album still reveals new details every time I play it. What a feeling!
Q: If someone wanted to understand where New Orleans music is heading over the next 10 years, who should they be listening to right now?
“That is a tough question. I guess I would say Galactic. LOL.” — Robert Mercurio, bassist and producer for Galactic
I agree. Enjoy the show. And let me know what you’ve liked this year.
— William Ramsey is a frontline editor at the Democrat and Chronicle and an enterprise editor in the USA TODAY Co. Network. Tell him what you are discovering in jazz or in New Orleans or how your Jazz Fest is going! wramseyiii@usatodayco.com. Or send a Rochester story idea.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Why Rochester keeps bringing New Orleans to Jazz Fest | Exclusive
Reporting by William Ramsey, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By William Ramsey, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle | USA TODAY Network
