I attended the Miami Gardens JazzFest 2 weeks ago. It was a great outing. It was the perfect weather and great music.  There were real good performances and some average ones.  I have a few pictures here but most of them I posted in the Photo Forums.

Day 1 – SATURDAY

Time/Line Up:
4:05 Rachel Brown
4:30 Kawan DeBose
4:55 Jon Saxx
5:40 K’Jon
6:30 Joe Sample
7:40 Teena Marie
8:50 Universoul Circus
9:15 Robin Thicke
10:45 Mary J Blige

Jon Saxx was really good. This brother has lots of talent. K’jon and Joe Sample were entertaining but I think most people went for refereshment during these performances. I did. Teena Marie “tore the place up”. It was one of the best performances of the show (if not the best). Robin Thicke was a little strange. His dancing was very distracting. He has soul singing but not sure about the dancing.

Mary J. Blige was the Headliner for the night. She is a true DIVA. She has a song call no more drama well this was DRAMA.  So I am going to break this down in to 2 parts. DIVA and Performance.

The Diva
Mary J is a true DIVA. She had the media waiting for almost 2 hours before finally entering the press tent. We kept getting new requirements for what we cannot do every 10 minutes. They kept saying she was coming because we were to be in stage to close the show out. We were told no questions and no live video recording. There were specific sets up for where we could be. We had to clear a path. Her trailer was a few feet away in a fenced off area. You could see it from the media tent.

She got in an Escalade, backed up to the tent. Her body guards and Police surrounded her. She walked on the stage in the media booth for 2 minutes (I think it was less) posed for a few shots then got back in the Escalade and was gone. Immediately after that she took to the stage 1 hour late. No photo by the press was allowed once she got on stage.

The Performance
The crowd was anticipating this performance. Based on what I saw walking around it was mainly women who attend the event. As soon as she was announced the crowd was on their feet. “ Sweet thing” had the crowd singing along. I don’t think the crowd sat down during her whole performance.  It was a great performance to cap the night off.

Day 2 – SUNDAY
Time/Line Up:

4:05 Jovie
4:30 Eric Roberson
5:15 Universoul Circus
5:40 David Sanborn (switched)
6:35 Melanie Fiona (switched)
7:40 Cassandra Wilson
8:45 Boyz II Men
10:05 John Legend

I caught the last part of Melanie Fiona’s performance. She can really sing. Everyone said she was really good. I was very disappointed as this was one of the performances I wanted to see. They switch her time with David Sanborn’s. We caught up with her in the press tent. I could barely get a picture in as flashes were going. She is a “looker” and  was popular with the photographers. You guessed it. The photographers were mainly men.

David Sanborn was decent. It was mainly an instrumental performance. His music is very mellow and soothing.

Cassandra Wilson was good. You could see her passion as she sang.

Boys to men was once of the best performances at the show. They had the crowd on their feet as they did many of there old songs. This was a high energy performance. They moved all over the stage and had the audience engaged. People were singing along through most of their songs.

John Legend was the headliner for the final night. He did it all. He Sang and played the piano. He had people dancing. It was a good choice to close out a great weekend of Jazz.