Its first production was a celebration of the 70 th birthday of Jack DeJohnette, the long-time Woodstock resident and one of the most important drummers of the second half of the 20 th Century and beyond. Founded in 2011 by the accomplished couple of bassist/composer John Menegon and vocalist/pianist Teri Roiger along with Bread Alone-founder and jazz-lover Dan Leader, Jazzstock launched with a bang. The mid-Hudson valley is disproportionately rich in jazz: an uncommonly deep pool of players and composers, a number of venues that favor jazz in their booking (The Falcon, Lydia’s Café and more), and the existence of several jazz promoters and advocacy groups including the Catskill Jazz Factory and, of course, Jazzstock.
All of which is to say, while all musicians lost something in quarantine, jazz players lost the main thing. Players are thus able to combine and recombine freely, often jumping on shows on extremely short notice and with no preparation at all except a lifetime of practice, some charts and a fluency in the conventions of the genre. On the level of technical musicianship and theoretical understanding, jazz’s bar to entry is set high. Most classic jazz records were recorded live in the studio, usually in a single day. Improvisational, unrepeatable and highly interactive, jazz is fundamentally live music. Jazz musicians, however, are arguably affected the most. Founders of Jazzstock Teri Roiger and John Menegon.Īll working musicians have suffered through the COVID era - the loss of camaraderie and connection as well as the loss of revenue.