The second annual Jazz, Funk, and Blues weekend will be held from Sept. 5-8, according to Geoffrey Morris of the Economic and Community Development Commission.
“CHIRP has scheduled Fairfield Counts for Thursday, Sept. 5, at Ballard Park, and then the library, the Aldrich, and Lounsbury House are going to fill in the blanks and book people,” Morris said.
Once the acts are booked, the commission will create a marketing campaign to promote the weekend.
“The idea is each place will market its own thing — each place will market all of them, but we’ll do the overall sort of coordination,” said Morris.
The plan is to have restaurants participate by having brunches and dinners. Morris said ideally the retail stores will also have sales during the weekend.
Vice Chairman John Devine said the library will be adding sound barriers “so that the acoustics work as opposed to bouncing off the walls.”
He suggested the Aldrich should start its program at 4 p.m. — two hours later than last year’s event, so it doesn’t conflict with student sports and other family events.
“I think we should allocate some money and hire bands for the steps of Main Street,” in order to draw attention to the event, Devine said.
“The village last year … you didn’t know anything was going on because everything was in remote locations, so Main Street felt like Main Street on any given Saturday.”
ECDC member Amanda Duff suggested restaurants could create jazz-themed drinks for the weekend.
“Each restaurant could name a cocktail after a notable jazz musician,” she said. “That would be so fun — it could be like a classy bar crawl.”
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