It’s all that jazz, and more, being performed:
– Pudges Bar is fast becoming the jazz headquarters of Hudson, as the trio Quasimofo will play there on Saturday night and mix in some funk and punk. The trio, made up of the musically inclined Ashwood family, plays almost all originals, which is very original in itself, and hits on all styles of jazz, including lesser heard forms such as bebop. When you listen to them, you will hear the influence of jazz stalwarts such as Miles Davis and Benny Goodman. Quasimofo will often ratchet up the tempo to a killer pace, then shortly after that tone it down for a different vibe. They will play from 8 to 11 p.m. at Pudges. You can also catch the local trio at a St. Paul Saints home game on Friday.
– JazzSpring’s weekly selections at Pudge’s Bar, starting at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays and 8 p.m. on Fridays, are branching out as much as the late summer flora and fauna on the patio.
“Lately we have gotten into playing the traditional song, ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic,’ because it has such a bluesy, 6/8 gospel feel,” said Melissa Stoudt, flutist and saxophonist for the duo JazzSpring.
A couple of other signature tunes on their set list are ‘Well You Needn’t’ by Theolonius Monk and ‘Tico Tico’ by Zequinha Abreu. “JazzSpring’s pianist, Ann Marie McIntire, created a pretty funny arrangement for Tico Tico with a dramatic tango type interlude and a ‘swingle singer-esque’ chrous. You gotta hear it,” Stoudt said.
– A newer addition to the Pepperfest music lineup was Saturday night’s Jug, to go with bands you’ve seen and will continue to see locally, 8 Foot 4 on Friday and of course The Dweebs on Sunday. While Jug was juggling songs that were a range of country and pop, and everything in between, here is what could be seen: For big black boots, there were many styles, but the most noteworthy was on a young woman with nothing but fluff from the ankle to a half-foot up the leg. For other headware, there were the flashing neon glasses frames of a woman with a sweatshirt announcing her as Grandma, and the smallest baseball hat I’ve ever seen, held onto the very top of a young man’s head with a plastic band around his chin. For the sublime, there was the carnival game warning that had the last word as far as typos, “No standing, leaning or knelling,” and of course the Pepperfest logo with a misformed letter that looked like it said “Pepperfeat.” And maybe the most interesting thing of the evening was a volunteer security guard who had lived all over the country and was an expert at mouthing dialects from, well, all over the country.