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The first day of the 23rd annual Rochester International Jazz Festival was threatened by an afternoon downpour and scattered lightning, but the skies cleared just in time to properly launch another week and a half of jazz in downtown Rochester.
Once again, Jazz Fest 2026 is packed to the brim with free performances, paid Club Pass shows, headliners, jam sessions, and even workshops. With only one day in the books, Jazz Street (Gibbs Street’s nickname for the festival week) had groups meeting up and planning out their week.
Jamile’s Brazilian Jazz Quartet packed the Inn at Broadway for one of the first big shows on the first day of the festival, which started the festivities on a smooth note. Jamile is an expert vocalist and she clearly specializes in the music of her home country, Brazil. Her thick alto tones are rich in texture and can easily be thrown from deep low vowels toward pure high tones with flexible and rapid runs in between them. Her level of control would be intimidating, but she performs with such joy and charm—she naturally uses the space around her to move with the music, between bandmates and toward the audience.
Brazilian jazz is an umbrella term to encompass really any Brazilian/jazz fusion, but usually is used to categorize the merging of jazz and samba music. Often it will be called bossa nova, although this term sometimes implies a more lounge-like sound. With all that said, the music Jamile’s quartet brought forward had the lounge elements dialed down and the dancing all the way up. It might have been impossible to not tap along to the samba grooves and move to Jamile’s honey-coated vocal presence.
The setlist was entirely made up of songs in Portuguese, which could be a bit alienating to some, but Jamile made sure to preface each one with a quick description. With these descriptions in mind, she really had a colorful set with one song about the smell of onions when cooking them, one about giving someone a fake phone number and another about a hypochondriac who experiences his wife’s birth pangs.
The highlight, though, was “Cantor da Noite,” which loosely translates to “nightclub singer,” which Jamile expectedly relates to. It was the first slower ballad of the set and the energy shifted immediately. Suddenly, Jamile was standing still, facing the piano instead of the audience. She took this one more inward, and put her entire focus on vocal presentation. It was a stunning display of vocal character, and really brought forward her ability to bring the audience within the feelings and lyrics of the song, even if they don’t understand any of the words. You could still feel the desperation and joy in this piece.
The set went a little long, so by the end many audience members had left to get to their next shows. Unfortunately, they missed the closing crowd-pleaser, “The Girl From Ipanema,” which was a wonderful twist on the classic bossa nova tune. The quartet took the song into more of a loose and gliding territory than it is usually performed, breathing new life into a melody that, to some, might be a bit overplayed.
At The Duke, Shebad made a triumphant return to Rochester for their second annual performance at the Jazz Fest. Hailing from just north of the border, in Guelph, Ontario, the band stopped by for the second destination of their summer tour. Mid-set, lead singer Claire Voy shared their traveling pains in the form of an overweight merchandise bag, which she encouraged the audience to lighten up after the show … if you caught her drift. I supported the cause with arguably the coolest merch of the evening: a mini playable harmonica necklace nicknamed the “Shemonica.” A C-major chord has never looked so fashionable.
It’s clear that Shebad has gotten comfortable in their sonic skin. Dressed in varying degrees of red and draped in a plethora of jewelry, the band eased like butter into the depths of their musically rich set: moving smoothly between their array of synthesizers, woodwinds, and rhythmic instruments. Among the acts of the night, their music leans contemporary and angles itself towards a psychedelic funk/soul/R&B mix. But, in the swirl of it all, genre is simply putty in the group’s hands—one that they meld into a living and breathing thing. Their song “Vernal Pools” depicts the sentiment well: “the world inside the water is a moving one”—just substitute the word “water” with “music.”
On “Time Takes Time,” singers Voy and Bella Tian eased the audience into a polyrhythmically trippy clap along; the crowd got the easy “1 and 2” count, while bassist/pianist/flutist Ciccio Spagnolo took a far more detailed route shuffling up and down the keys. Audience participation wasn’t just an ask, it became inevitable as my body sunk into the rapidly switching rhythms of Shebad’s discography.
“Dancing Nonstop” (which Shebad just released yesterday via streaming) leaned toward toe-tapping samba, just as others like “Brother” tilted toward a jazzed up countryesque sound. All the while, the group bobbled between their billions of instruments and danced with each other in the spaces between. Voy and Tian even brought in some light choreography. While I itched to join them on stage and be twirled around and rattle a tambourine, the front-row seat and inescapable compulsion to tap along was satiating enough. Based on the packed audience that stayed seated till the show’s very end, it seems that the rest of the crowd felt the same.
In the beautiful Temple Theater, Rochester group the Campbell Brothers took the stage. Surrounded by tall stained glass windows, brothers Chuck Campbell (pedal steel guitar) and Phillip Campbell (electric guitar), and Philip’s son Carlton Campbell (drums) got the entire crowd on their feet for an uplifting gospel set. The group wasted no time in shouting out that day one of the Jazz Fest landed on Juneteenth this year, and to celebrate this they launched into “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” commonly known as the “Black National Anthem.” Already a few audience members were compelled to stand up, most likely from the historical gravity the song has, and its modern prevalence.
Soon after they wrapped up on the powerful opening, the brothers made sure the audience was aware that they are at a gospel show, and people should sing, move, clap, stand, and wave their hands as they feel moved to. Jazz Fest crowds are notoriously stiff when it comes to the Club Pass shows, but the Campbell Brothers have mastered crowd control so much that everyone was left clapping along for most of the set.
The Campbell Brothers are a pillar in a specific genre known as Sacred Steel, a twist on gospel music that entirely focuses on the pedal steel guitar. It has been around for nearly a century, but this group was the one to really bring it to the attention of the public with some successful touring. The late Darick Campbell and Chuck Campbell on the lap steel and pedal steel, respectively, would blow audiences away with their unique tuning along with the novel approach of placing the smooth reverberations of the pedal steel over high energy gospel.
Guest vocalist Denise Brown joined the Campbells, and the energy exhibited by the audience can mostly be attributed to her exuberance. She constantly prompted claps and vocal participation from the audience, and for the most part everyone complied graciously. For a lot of folk, this was a lesson in what it is like to be at a gospel church.
Each song went through rapid dynamic change, eventually peaking at a loud, bursting, repeated refrain, creating chilling moments of intense spiritual musical connection. Each musician had stand-out technical ability and some mind-blowing solos, but none of them were self-serving. It was more intuitive to get lost in the tone and messaging of the performance than to focus on any individual member of the group. To the Campbell Brothers, all glory goes to God.
Their rendition of “Amazing Grace” was especially touching, with Chuck Campbell taking on the song solo at first, giving a pedal steel take on the song that elevates its form and tone to an almost otherworldly level, before Phillip Campbell came in with his guitar filtered through an organ pedal to ground the song toward a satisfying finish.
To end the set, the brothers performed “Don’t Let the Devil Ride,” which started as an emotional blues tune before quickly evolving to a high-stakes roller coaster of a gospel finish. Not only does this song connect the worlds of blues and gospel in a fluent way that exemplifies how the two genres are tied to each other stylistically, but it also is just a 10-minute monster that will probably leave any crowd standing on their feet and yelling back call-and-response vocal parts.
At Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre, saxophonist Joe Lovano and Friends paid tribute to late jazz great John Coltrane and celebrated the centennial of his birth. In his few spoken words—as most of the hour was dedicated to the music—Lovano also expressed the performance’s celebration of both Juneteenth and the recently passed saxophonist Sonny Rollins.
The artistry of the hour could be described as nothing less than a class act. Each performer’s technicality and ease made each of their instruments seem as simple to use as a third hand: impossible to us in the audience, yet intuitive for the musicians on stage. The act sported Lovano, Gregory Garzone, and Jerry Bergonzi on saxophone; Leo Genovese on piano; Peter Slavov on acoustic bass; Otis Brown III on drums; and two special guests: Frank Tiberi and Tommy Smith on saxophone.
Each artist, while distinct in their playing styles, meshed excellently into the cohesion of the overall ensemble. The first movement of the night walked through a nearly 30-minute progression of the tribute work: “Seraphic Light” (Coltrane), “One Down, One Up” (Coltrane), and “East Broadway Run Down” (Rollins) to name a few. One’s familiarity with the music wasn’t a prerequisite, although it may have been helpful to discern the proper transitions between each of the songs.
Otherwise, the music moved through a constant state of ebb and flow into itself—interspersed with shared melody, solo, and pivots between the two modes of play. Through their dedication, a new thread of sound and kinship unearthed, one reliant on a strong musical intuition and subtle gestures from player to player. It was refreshing to see and to listen to.
To the audience’s delight, Tiberi took the stage in the second set, joining in for a rich improvisation on Coltrane’s “Naima” and other selected pieces. His embouchure was softer, yet just as potent in the clean mix of the ensemble’s refrains. It’s worth mentioning here: Kodak Hall’s inclusion in the Club Pass venue lineup is absolutely stellar—and Lovano’s ensemble is only the start of the magic. As if the rainbow’s colors refracted from a white light, each instrument rang out so cleanly in the gargantuan hall. Every texture, from the tinny shine of the drums to the cello’s neat twang, cut through even the most layered of harmonic progressions.
Speaking on top of the music as if the instrument himself, Lovano made an announcement on Tiberi’s behalf: his recordings of John Coltrane from the early 1960s entitled “The Tiberi Tapes” will be released this year.
The final set of the evening culminated with passion. Each soloist wailed, each harmony flourished, and every musician seemed to cherish the moments of humanity shared in between. In the rush of the noise, it felt as if a warm fragility encapsulated the room: enough for the spectators to dip into the feeling, but leaving room to discern the connection of the musicians as their own. A bond of sentiment, joy, and instrumental connection.
For the Beacon’s Jazz Fest coverage, click here.
Alex Holly and Jess Williams are Beacon contributing writers and former interns.
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