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Wednesday marks the middle of the week—“the hump,” as some may call it. But, with the Rochester International Jazz Festival in full swing, the schedule is slightly offset, with Tuesday as the halfway mark of the festivities.
To celebrate, I opted for an early start to the day with a 1 p.m. vocal jazz workshop led by Allan Harris. The session is part of a weeklong jazz education series for learners of all ages and backgrounds, which runs through Friday in the Eastman School’s Ray Wright Room. If you’re able to get the time off work, they’re certainly worth attending.
Harris, per his introduction, is a singer and guitarist “born into a life of music.” Duke Ellington was his babysitter for a time, although he joked that the band leader’s voice was a bit too “scary and deep” for his elementary-school-aged self.
The world Harris reflects on is one of his aunt’s soul food restaurant next to the Apollo Theater, Sunday matinees, and rearing horses on his grandfather’s farm in Pennsylvania. Memory cuts clear through the rumble of his voice, which translates quite well for the jazz singer. To Harris, performance is rooted in storytelling. He’s even started speaking poetry alongside his sung repertoire.
The singer’s main sentiments centered on matters such as picking one’s own songs (and not picking bad ones for one’s voice), working with instrumentalists, and treating the audience as both a deep confidant and a slow-moving animal. It’s in these descriptions where his background as a cowboy rings through; to Harris, the audience is a creature to be tended to and fed sweet apples.
“We have an hour to get to know each other,” Harris said. The songs in his sets, sung low, slow, and poignantly, are devoted to that cause.
In turn, Harris’ instrumentalists are “wild horses,” settled down and well acquainted with each other before he even thinks to enter the stage.
In the hour-and-a-half workshop, Harris’ horses took their turn at the sonic corral: workshop organizer Bob Sneider on guitar, Eastman student Erin Famous on upright bass, and his longtime collaborator Rick Germanson on the keys. The group jammed through songs like Bobby Hebb’s “Sunny” and Henry Mancini’s “Charade,” with quick sight-reading and subtle gestures from Harris to the impromptu band. It was impressive work, and the group remarked on how clean they could be if they had the chance to fully practice. The session dropped the curtain of jazz’s most elusive paradigm—how precisely the musicians communicate—answering it with the tenets of strong musical intuition, a strong eye for the group’s leader, and some form of guesswork that could just as well translate to telepathy.
For Harris and Co., less was more, and the animal in my audience self was fulfilled.
I eagerly returned to the festival in the evening for Hiromi’s Sonicwonder. Judging by the size of the crowd, a mass which filled the first two levels of Kodak Hall and spilled up into the balcony level, I was not alone in my excitement.
Hiromi’s Sonicwonder moves with a cosmic momentum. Their performance, like the universe, even started with a boom—an accidental guitar sputter, sure, but enough to get the crowd rolling and whooping as the set began. In the hour that followed, the audience seemed to spin around the quartet’s gravitational pull.
A rambunctious and gargantuan sound jostled with each melody; impossible to follow, yet conscious enough to turn, shift, or lighten up at the audience’s unconscious demand. Hiromi, donning her standard Ms. Frizzle-esque updo, led the pack. Her craftsmanship poured over Kodak Hall’s grand piano and a set of carefully placed synthesized keyboards: one atop the main piano, another directly to her side. Her hands flitted between the instruments—often playing with her left hand on one keyboard and her right on the other—each moving in entirely different rhythms, octaves, and timbres.
Hiromi’s star-factor isn’t just her sonic craftsmanship and compositional prowess. She’s a physical performer as well: one who lunges over the keyboard and seemingly casts spells with her thrashing, mesmerizing movements. Mid-riff, she’d throw beaming smiles at the audience, seemingly laughing along with the joviality of her own quartet’s play. Hiromi is a performer you can’t keep your eyes off of, nor your ears.
But, of course, Sonicwonder is not a solo endeavor. The quartet is composed of the aforementioned Hiromi, Hadrien Feraud on bass, Gene Coye on drums, and Adam O’Farrill on trumpet—each of whom plays a fundamental role in crafting the ensemble’s out-of-your-imagination melodies.
O’Farrill, who appeared mellow in demeanor and held his trumpet to his chest like an infant, leaped out of these comforts into his wide range of solo and improvised work. While high brass can often come off as a bit too bright, O’Farrill’s trumpeteering was smooth and buttery, hitting the highs and lows with an equal fervor. Throughout the set, he spun the knobs of a nearby mixer, dressing his trumpet salad in wobbling tremolo, reverb, and squeaky arpeggios that fit the group’s vibrant mix.
“Utopia,” one of the middle songs of the group’s set, accentuated its mercurial tastes. While the piece started out softer and highlighted a reverb-washed bass solo, it soon burst—as Sonicwonder pieces do—into a cacophony of tastefully explosive sound. The group’s (unfortunately unnamed) closer followed a similar pattern: creating a sort of comedy as it ramped up, softened down, and spun the wheel round again to a new modulated tune.
I ended the night with a performance from The Empress at Kilbourn Hall—an all-woman saxophone quartet with Pureum Jin, Lauren Sevian, Erena Terakubo, and Chelsea Baratz. The group is fresh off the release of its 2025 debut album “Square One,” which sports a series of jazz standards reimagined and recomposed for the saxophone. This discography, including Cedar Walton’s “Bolivia” and John Coltrane’s “Mr. Syms,” made up the majority of the evening. Backing the ladies were a pianist, bassist, and drummer, a rhythmic trio that served as the bread and butter to The Empress’ jam.
While many of the acts at the festival work on a sort of unspoken communication, Jin applied a more direct—and visual—approach. With a quiet 1, 2, 3, 4, and pointed hand raise, each piece was off to the races, and shortly thereafter wrapped with the rise and fall of her still-playing saxophone.
Each song lent a hand to warbling octave work across the keyboard-range of saxophones (and briefly a clarinet), trading off solos at an even pace. The quartet shifted their energy in unison as they moved from low-blowing blues to swinging funk and the hour’s highlighted genres, drawing on a shared stamina throughout. With their solo work and melodies that tracked up and down the saxophone neck, I could only wonder how crazy their sheet music looked.
Yet, in a flood of noise and leaning toward repetitive 12-bar refrains, the ensemble shone most clearly when given more room to breathe. Solo work, moments of unison, and stripped-down sections were my highlights of the hour; at times, the busyness of the hall worked to their detriment.
Midway through the set, Jin called for the energy to be brought up with Duke Ellington’s “Caravan,” which the quartet shimmied through with excellent flair and richness. On the drums, Pete Van Nostrand particularly showed his chops with his cymbal hits and fills.
The closer of the night—a rendition of Oliver Nelson’s “Yearnin,’” howled up at the moon and gave the sweetness needed to close off the evening well.
For the Beacon’s Jazz Fest coverage, click here.
Alex Holly is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and member of the Oasis Project’s second cohort.
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