All That Jazz

high caliber of performers who participate in the festival each year.

Reiners said that expectations started from the beginning with the founder of the event, Sterling Nelson, who died in 2020. Nelson selected which bands played each year.

Many of the musicians that performed this year had a long history with the event. Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpeter and leader of James Dapogny’s Chicago Jazz Band, said they performed at the rst festival in 2001.

“We’ve lost some of our key members and haven’t played here for nine years, but we decided to reunite for the 20th,” Kellso said.

Reiners said most jazz festivals across the country are very well traveled with some people traveling from festival to festival to hear the music. Evergreen’s festival is unique because of the town’s scenery and the venues’ intimacy.

“ ere’s a wonderful rapport that gets going between the musicians and the audience,” Reiners said.

Tuba player Bill Clark, the leader of the Queen City Jazz Band with Wende Harston, said his band performed at the second festival in 2003. Clark also lives in the Evergreen area.

“I’m really pleased to see how many local people come out to the festival each year,” Clark said. “You don’t see that in too many other places.”

Hal Smith is another musician who performed at both this year’s festival and the rst one, but with two different bands. He played the drums for Capt. John Royen’s New Orleans Rhythm this year and was with the Roadrunners in 2001.

Smith said performing in Evergreen is much di erent from most of the other locations he performs at across the country.

“Evergreen is the only place I’ve ever been where a herd of elk inter- rupted our performance,” he said. “I guess they wanted to check out the music.”

Reiners said the festival is the perfect casual environment to meet some of the best jazz musicians in the country who have been performing for decades.

“ ese (musicians) are the real deal,” he said. “It’s so easy here to just go up and talk to them because they want to talk to you, too. I think that’s why everybody likes coming back.”