Date: Friday, June 15, 2012
Venue: the Roulette

Reviewed by Matt Cole

One of the many interesting things about the New York City jazz scene is that it is large enough to have a number of separate sub-scenes that have little overlap between performers (and quite possibly audience, though that is much harder to quantify). While this can certainly feel like cliquishness at times, I suspect that a fairly large part of it is that people have only so much time available, and can devote themselves to only so many bands; thus there is a natural tendency to fall into somewhat vaguely-defined groups. This doesn’t, of course, remove the danger of insularity and diminishing musical cross-fertilization. At any rate, this phenomenon can be seen by contrasting the recent 17th Vision Festival with last winter’s Winter Jazzfest — two events with very different lineups and to a certain extent musical feels. Yet, both events can be put under the aegis of modern jazz. The crowds were different, too: Winter Jazzfest had a younger crowd which seemed right at home in the West Village venues which it calls home, while the Vision Festival has a formal, almost classical feel to it, complete with the occasional shushing (though to be fair, there was some seriously pianissimo music at times).