ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)—The journey of the Jazz Aspen Snowmass (JAS) from jazz all the way to pop is now all but complete.
The jazz in the title of the latest version of the June Rio Grande Park festival and the Labor Day version in the Town of Snowmass Village is represented almost entirely in the presence of Herbie Hancock, an undisputed giant whose career represents the same movement from cool buttoned-down jazz to the mass market of pop. But Hancock, JAS’s distinguished artist-in-residence, will have to look long and hard to find other musicians with his historical provenance.
Instead, JAS president and executive producer Jim Horowitz has turned to sure-fire star power sure to put fannies on the Snowmass turf—namely, the Allman Brothers Band. The Allmans will play the festival; and so will Government Mule, with Allmans guitarist Warren Haynes; and the Derek Trucks Band led by the nephew of an original member and the current slide guitarist in the Allman Brothers Band. Even Susan Tedeschi, the wife of Derek Trucks, will also be performing.
JAS discovered the power of jam bands over the last several years, and Horowitz is not about to eschew the fanatical fans the genre requires. Others on the 2007 Labor Day bill include Joss Stone, a young British soul singer, Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals, Nickel Creek.
The June 2007 festival in Rio Grande Park, meanwhile, features Earth, Wind & Fire, the Black Crowes, Angelique Kudjo, Marcus Miller —and Stevie Winwood, late of the Spencer Davis Group and Traffic.
One big difference in 2007: no Kanye West and no rappers of any kind. Perhaps the Roaring Fork Valley is not yet ready for hip-hop at a JAS festival.