We were able to park on Virginia Avenue, not too far from Monroe, and walked from there. At the park, there were lots of people who had clearly arrived early to stake out their favorite location and set up tents. The International Stage, where we were going, was on the other side of the lake. There the crowd was smaller. There were not many people with tents but lots of people with folding chairs and blankets up close to the stage or farther back in the bits of shade that were available. We put our chairs near a picnic table in the shade and settled in for the afternoon.
The first performer was a Moroccan musician, Ali Amr, who plays the qanun, a stringed instrument that resembles an autoharp. It was a great performance but it did seem like it was better suited for a late night, dimly lit club than a bright Sunday afternoon.
Next was Diego Figueriedo, the Braziliam guitarist. He was terrific. Afterwards Tom joined the crowd at the WRFG tent and bought a CD. He said that it took a long time because there was lots of conversation and photograph-taking that accompanied the transaction.
We'd checked the weather forecast before we left and it was "chance of rain after 4 p.m." That didn't seem like a deal-breaker, but soon after 4 the clouds came in. We moved away from our spot under the tree and closer to the stage, since we didn't need the shade any more, but then it rained. Unlike many of the other attendees, we hadn't brought umbrellas. We talked about leaving -- lots of people did -- but the final performer, Cyrille Aimée, is an acclaimed jazz vocalist and we thought hearing her was worth getting wet. So we turned our chairs over to keep the seats a little drier and took refuge under some trees until the rain passed, which it did in a bit.
She was fabulous and I'm glad we stayed. She has a wonderful voice and it was a terrific performance.
Not only was the music great, which it was, but it also was the kind of mellow, diverse group in the audience that is enjoyable to be with. We shared the picnic table with lots of different people over the afternoon. It was the closest thing I have experienced in Atlanta in my almost 25 years of living here to the concerts in Millennium Park that we have been to in Chicago. Which raises the question -- if I enjoy this type of event so much, why haven't I ever been before?
In Chicago, we could get to the park on a bus. We didn't have to drive and we didn't have to figure out where to park and we didn't have to walk very far once we got off the bus. (I don't mind the walking, but Tom just can't do it any more.) In Atlanta, MARTA is limited and you can't really get from point A to point B reliably by bus. Everyone drives everywhere and that means parking is a mess. I never went to the Atlanta Jazz Festival before because I could not envision getting there without a level of hassle that I wasn't willing to endure. There are lots of things that I would enjoy doing that I don't do because I don't want to deal with driving and parking. Maybe this is just me, but it does feel like this is a quality-of-life tax I pay for living in a city that is so car-dependent. And of course, I *have* a car.
It ended up not being bad, the getting-there-hassle-part, although it was at the edge of what Tom could do in terms of walking. Afterwards, we were talking about the possibility of getting to the park by bicycle. I told him that the new high-tech traffic-stopping light finally got installed on Monroe, making it safer to cross from Cumberland into Piedmont Park. He asked if there was anywhere at the park to park bicycles. Yes, I told him, the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition was there, just inside the park, offering valet parking.
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As I watched some of the demolition, a Wessyington dog-walker told me that Morningside Baptist Church was on the corner, that the building the porch was the education / Sunday school building and that behind, in a nearby back yard was the scout hut or the remains of the scout hut. I'd love to know if that was true. Perhaps Morningside Baptist has some archives. From an old Morningside Walking Tour: In 1951, members of MORNINGSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH held their first worship service in the current sanctuary on Piedmont Road, bounded by Peiham Road and Montgomery Ferry Drive. The church was designed by Thomas W. Gardner of Nashville in the "gothic style" members voted to accept. Founded in 1930, the church met in a temporary building at N. Highland Avenue and Wessyngton Road beginning in 1931.
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