Rochester Jazz Fest: Backing musicians for Prince will play a tribute on Friday
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ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — Musicians who spent years performing with Prince will play a tribute to the legend at a Friday night free show at the Rochester International Jazz Festival. New Power Generation will perform starting at 9 p.m.
The Bacon Brothers, the country-rock duo with actor Kevin Bacon and his brother, is another one of the 16 free shows on Friday. The lineup for Friday features 39 total acts.
The Jazz Fest lineup in 2022 is massive — boasting across 21 stages, with more than 1,700 performers and 335 shows. The festival’s closing night is on Saturday.
"Tens of thousands of people are gonna be made happy enjoying each other’s company. You know strolling around the streets, outside it’s gonna be safe, it’s gonna be wonderful, and we’re so excited to be able to do this again," said Festival Producer and Artistic Director John Nugent.
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Gibbs Street has once again turned into "Jazz Street" for the duration of the nine-day festival, from June 17 – 25.
The festival received a government grant this year, spearheaded by Senator Chuck Schumer.
“Instead of putting it into infrastructure and different things that we would be able to do for future festivals, we made a decision to take the majority of this grant, and we put it into all free programming, so this is really really exciting," Schumer said.
The festival will have 27 free shows on Parcel Five. There will also be free shows at Martin Luther King Jr. Park.
For a list of FREE shows at this year’s Jazz Fest, click here. For a list of the FREE headliner series, click here.
The FULL schedule can be found below.