RiverEdge Park opens summer concert season with SoulFeed Smooth Jazz Festival
A variety of smooth jazz styles will entertain crowds at Aurora's RiverEdge Park Saturday, June 6, when the SoulFeed Smooth Jazz Festival opens the downtown venue's summer concert season.
The lineup includes headliner Hiroshima, an American/Asian-American jazz-fusion band; saxophonist Walter Beasley; and Latin-based jazz band Mambo Express. Denise Jordan Walker, former WNUA radio personality, will host.
"There's nothing that brings a community together like music. Jazz is a genre founded in America," festival founder Tracy Scott said. "Smooth jazz encompasses gospel, blues, rock, and rhythm and blues. That's why it really appeals to people."
Scott, a senior adjunct professor at Loyola University Chicago, has been involved in presenting concert events in the Chicago area for more than seven years through his nonprofit organization.
The SoulFeed Smooth Jazz Festival evolved, he said, from the Wheaton Smooth Jazz Festival, presented in June 2014 in Wheaton's Memorial Park. In 2013, the event was known as the Gospel Festival, also presented in Memorial Park.
"There have been a couple of names. We actually started out indoors as more of a concert and we morphed into an outdoor festival," Scott said.
He's looking forward to seeing the festival take place in the new location, along the Fox River and in the heart of downtown Aurora.
"It's such a state-of-the-art venue," he said. "It's an amphitheater that sits right on top of the Fox River. It's drop-dead gorgeous."
Scott compares the park to the North Shore's Ravinia Festival. All seats are general admission. There is bench seating; guests are welcome to bring blankets and lawn chairs.
Gates will open at 3 p.m. for the SoulFeed festival.
Mambo Express, a band Scott describes as "Afro-Cuban" with a specialty in Latin-flavored fusion jazz, is set to take the stage at 4 p.m. The band's founder, Victor Parra, currently hosts a radio show of the same name on WDCB 90.9-FM radio.
Walter Beasley, an alto and soprano saxophonist and singer, will perform at 6 p.m.
Hiroshima is set to play at 8 p.m.
"They are legendary. They are known all over the world. They've been nominated for Grammy awards," Scott said.
Food vendors will be available at the festival, where guests also may purchase beer, wine, soft drinks and water. The show will go on, rain or shine, Scott said. Tickets are $40.
Scott said the SoulFeed Smooth Jazz Festival organization, which supports a broadcast scholarship program and community seminars, has several goals for the festival.
"There is a purpose: to keep this genre of music alive and to introduce new (performers) who are not familiar. It's a way of infusing and trying to have a positive impact. It's something to raise the artistic perspectives of the community," he said. "It's just a great, relaxing time."