From the 2019 Bude Jazz Festival

How does one summarize a four-day festival? Let's start with the setting. The program lists 35 bands, not all OKOM, or at least my kind of music (as far as I was concerned, Richard Exall goes Getz and the Brubeck project were definitely to be avoided), not all falling within the definition of jazz. And then, one has preferences, mine is not to be where they play the flute. So one is left with hearing some bands more than once. Unfortunately, I missed two OKOM bands, as one clashed with a band I considered more interesting while the other one played at an open-air stage on a rainy day. There were seven venues, a far cry from the previous Bude festivals I attended; in 2012 (the last I attended) there were 14. The attendance, too, was smaller: In 2012, some venues were full to capacity and late comers were not allowed to enter; this year, the closest to that was the Dorine de Wit's band at the Falcon Hotel on the first day, but even there it was not over-crowded, only all the good seats were taken. On an optimistic note, there were quite a few younger people in the audience, people in their forties and fifties, and perhaps younger than that. Now to the music, which, after all, was the reason I went there. All the bands I heard were good, some excellent! Since the proceedings started with Stan Allen and Friends, buskers, really,  on the Falcon Hotel porch, the Falcon was t