Now based in New York City, she has released multiple CDs to great reviews, received the Jazz at Lincoln Center Swing Award in 2015, runs her own “Hot Jazz” camps and festival in NYC-and flat-out nails it on her horn, whether traditional Dixieland style, ballad, or most anything in between. Bria Skonberg (pictured above, courtesy ), is a Canadian trumpet player and vocalist who has caught even the attention of Vanity Fair (“Shaking Up the Jazz World,” they said about her). And the opening act certainly set the tone. The reason for that is simple: this year’s (and I suspect most other incarnations of this event) drew some of the top young performers to Madison (along with some favorite “old-timers” who can still show the “kids” a thing or two). It was a classic “duh” moment when I finally realized I should write about it in fact, as the day unfolded it became obvious there was no way I couldn’t have written about it. We ordered our tickets months ago, I cleared my work schedule, and off we went.

Truth be told, I hadn’t even thought about blogging about this until just before the event. Now I can say I really didn’t know what I was missing. The Madison Jazz Society was founded in 1984, and had been presenting the Capital City Jazz Fest since 1989…and somehow I was always “too busy” to make it to a single one. I love the fact that the MJS has donated over $113,000 over the years to area school programs, and have featured the top high school jazz players with some regularity. We got on the MJS email list, and had been to a local event now and then. There was a certain symmetry to my being at the Wyndham Garden Hotel in Fitchburg about ten years ago we went to dinner there for our wedding anniversary, and it happened to be the opening Friday night of that year’s CCJF. It was presented as always by the Madison Jazz Society. Now I was equally enthralled by the Bria Skonberg Quintet, one of the hottest groups in the contemporary jazz scene in New York-and beyond.Īnd this was just the beginning the Saturday day session of the 29 th annual Capital City Jazz Fest ran from 11-4. It didn’t take long-sometime around 11:15 Saturday morning, the juxtaposition hit me: Fifteen hours earlier I had been in the Capitol Theater, hearing a world premiere concerto for two pianos, with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. Four amazing ensembles in five hours make for a quick Saturday

Capital city jazz festival 2017