Sac Jazz Jubilee/Festival

Blog No. 143: Sac Jazz Jubilee/Festival

I've been talking about going to the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee for awhile now, since the fact that going to the Fanime convention was out of the question. 

I went to it last year for an entire day while Piper, Dustin, JT, Molly, Rachel, and a bunch of other people were in San Jose for Fanime. I had a pretty cool time. I walked the span of downtown, from the Convention Center to Old Sacramento, stopping by a few concerts along the way. I stopped by a couple of ballrooms, including the one in the Convention Center for a little bit of the swing dancing lessons. There was a concert in the IMAX and the Crest Theatre that were pretty cool. Then I'd wandered into the K street mall, where I had a meal at the Johnny Rockets, then continued my direction toward Old Sacramento, where a lot of the concerts were either outside or hidden. A lot of the live music ranged from the dixieland/big band stuff to the modern/lounge stuff. At least they had variety! XP

This was the year I was going to go with everyone to Fanime. Unfortunately, the cost of the hotel room got a little too expensive for everyone to pay for. As a consequence, Piper, Difuentez, and I, as well as the guys and Susan Surrandon, could no longer go.

This time around, I didn't get a ride so I wasn't planning on going today, 5/23. However, Taka had called me at around late afternoon to invite me to the Sac Jazz Jubilee with Piper, Yowty, and Parker. How could I resist?

Parker had picked us all up and I lead everyone to the vicinity in Old Sacramento, seeing as it was pretty close to the evening and most of the jazz would be located here. Piper called JT while we were walking to Old Sacramento. JT had gone to Fanime with a different group of his friends. We ended up just getting his voicemail though. XP

First, Piper wanted to go to the Candy Heaven store, where we sampled some candy inside the store, (Don't worry, it was legal! XP). I never really had taffy before, but I had tried a few pieces and, after that, I would seriously take one of those barrels home with me full of taffy. I liked the cherry and chocolate flavored ones. Taka had me tried pomegranate, (in reference to the weird dream and her LolPomegranate drawing that spawned from it!), which, to tell the truth, I didn't really like pomegranate flavored anything. But after tasting the taffy, the pomegranate taffy turned out to be my favorite! XP

Then, Taka really wanted to go to the Evangeline's Costume Shop to try out the carnival machine they had. For 25 cents, you grip the handle and the machine tells you how great a date you are. This time, I think I got "sexy". All I know is, Taka got the highest one out of all of us, again. XP

We walked around in circles for a bit, listening to bits and pieces of jazz concerts here and there. We passed and stopped by one in the alleyway behind a couple of stores a few times. This band kinda did mainstream old school rock songs. One of the times, we walked by it from the second story, where we looked down at the people dancing in front of the covered stage. Taka and I did some silly dances up there, like "the sprinkler" or "dodge the bullets" and what not. Someone yelled out, "FREE BIRD!" to the band, which is a pretty decent Lynyrd Skynyrd song. But Taka was laughing about it and we decided to use it at random places. XD

There was a drum circle of three guys, banging on garbage cans and glass bottles in the street, which was pretty cool. Piper recorded most of the session. There was a couple of guys from the crowd that did some random contorshonist dancing, bending his arm backwards and what not. One of the drumers banged on a dust pan lid while dragging it on the street, creating sparks as it went along. It was a pretty cool display! XP

We ended up at Round Table Pizza, the second time around. We ordered a large pepperoni pizza and some garlic bread to split amongst the five of us. The band there was the type of jazz that would lean on the big band type of music, which was fun to listen to, but hard to bear if you're trying to hold a conversation with someone across from you in a booth. We played a round of Liz's Game.

After Round Table, Parker took us home...

FREE BIRD! XP