Musical artists from across Northeast Ohio and beyond will converge on downtown Akron this weekend for the annual Rubber City Jazz and Blues Festival.
The festival, which kicks off Thursday evening and runs through Saturday, will feature 29 performances, five panel discussions and one film screening. Outside of headliner Aneesa Strings’ Saturday evening performance at the Knight Stage with Dan Wilson, all of the events are free and open to the public.
Nine venues throughout downtown will play host to the festival, including the Knight Stage, Musica, BLU Jazz+ and the Akron Art Museum. A new addition this year is an outdoor stage on North High Street near East Market Street.
Having the festival spread throughout downtown is a good way to activate the city, said Theron Brown, founder of Rubber City Jazz and Blues Festival.
“There might be somebody that sees a show at Musica that wouldn’t usually go there. And now we’re opening up a door to some new people that like the aesthetic of a venue or something,” Brown said. “So it’s not even just about the musicians, but I think we’re activating spaces in a way that’s beneficial to the community, raising awareness and economy.”
The man in charge of selecting the artists to fill those stages is Tommy Lehman. When asked how he finds acts for the festival, Lehman quoted a jazz great.
“In the words of Duke Ellington, there’s good music and there’s bad music,” he said. “I’m more so looking for the right vibe that fits the local sound that we have going on here in Northeast Ohio.”
Lehman cited Alex Hamburger, a flutist from the D.C. area as an example.
“She has a version of her band with all Northeastern Ohio musicians that features Kip Reed on the bass, Gabe Jones on the drums and Patrick Duke Graney on percussion. I knew she’d be a great fit to bring in here,” he said.
Festival to shine light on Akron’s jazz history
While the festival is, of course, about the musical performances, a prominent educational component will be on display throughout the weekend. Between performances from Kent State’s Bobby Selvaggio and Sean Jones, Alex Hamburger and Hubb’s Groove, guests can sit in on sessions about psychedelics in music, navigating the jazz scene as a rising artist and preparing for touring.
On Saturday, Rochelle Riley, director of arts, culture and entrepreneurship for the City of Detroit, will deliver a keynote address on the importance of municipal support for arts and culture.
“With Akron being a city that does not have the centralized funding mechanisms that other cities, not only throughout Ohio but throughout the country, have, and how we have so much support that is yielded towards foundations, it’s important to see and imagine what municipal support can look like for the creative economy,” said Will Blake, director of programming for the festival.
Brown will take the stage Saturday for a discussion about a subject that is close to his heart: Akron’s forgotten history of jazz and blues. Much of that history centers around North Howard Street, a thriving Black neighborhood community that was destroyed when the Innerbelt was constructed.
By sharing this part of the city’s history, Brown said it “fills in some blanks” and gives people the full picture.
“If people know the good and bad and ugly of history and its full scope … then we can come to restoring and healing the hurt that’s been dealt with the neighborhoods being ran through by the Innerbelt, or just the whole section of town disappearing that we hear stories [about], that [it] was so full of life,” he said.
He continued, “People don’t trust folks if we don’t have the full story, or it’s just going to be the same thing over and over again.”
