Fillmore St. Jazz Festival

One of the great things about living in San Francisco is all the great street fairs. One of the not-so-great things about lots of those are that they are JAM PACKED! We went to the St. Patrick's Day festival this year, and left as quickly as we could, because 1. there was nothing good there and 2. it was so crowded we could hardly move. (Paul just added #3: the only thing everyone seemed to be doing was drinking voluminous quanities of beer, and it seemed the only reason to go.) So, we were just hoping yesterday, when we went to the Fillmore Street Jazz Festival (http://fillmorestreetjazzfest.com/) that it wouldn't be like that. And it was crowded, but not so much that our agoraphobic tendencies took over (at least not too much). And it was really fun! Free jazz, everywhere we went. The best of what we heard were these guys: http://www.syncopatedtaint.com/main.htm They were so versatile, and one of the guys did things with a clarinet that we've never seen done before.....uh, musically. They were a lot of fun to listen to. The head guy, after each song, would bark like a dog into the microphone, which definitely added the element of freak. :-) Paul thought their band should be named The Wailing Geeks, as they were geeky-looking white guys with fedoras and horn-rimmed spectacles.

I don't know the name of the first band we listened to, but they were good, too, and brought to memory the roots of jazz: African American music. They had a little kid playing a drum for some of their songs, and he was really good! He got rhythm, for sure. And, I'll tell you, I've never seen anywhere else in San Francisco where you can buy breaded okra and catfish nuggets. We settled for frozen lemonade for the kids and margaritas for the adults, and garlic fries. Ooh, these were the real deal....NOT fries with garlic powder on them, but real chunks of garlic that could keep vampires away for months. Mmm, they were good. We could smell them way before we saw them. Lots of good art and great clothing, too.