Kool and the Gang at Jacksonville Jazz Festival (May 23, 2025)
One of the biggest free Jazz festivals in the country, the Jacksonville Jazz Festival, in Jacksonville, Florida, is currently underway this Memorial Day Weekend. Officially, the event kicked off on Thursday (May 22), with a Jacksonville Jazz Piano Competition at The Florida Theatre. The winners got a cash reward, as well as the opportunity to play on Saturday (today) to an audience, estimated to reach about twenty-five thousand attendees (keep in mind that the majority of people will show up much later in the day).
Jacksonville Jazz Festival Schedule
- Jacksonville Jazz Piano Competition
at The Florida Theatre
- Let’s Ride Brass Band 4:30 PM
- Spyro Gyra 6:00 PM
- Maysa 7:45 PM
- Kool & the Gang 9:30 PM
- Douglas Anderson School of the Arts Jazz Combo 3:45 PM
- Piano Comp Winner 4:45 PM
- Tank and the Bangas 5:45 PM
- Trombone Shorty
& Orleans Avenue 7:30 PM - Janelle Monáe 9:15 PM
- UNF Jazz Ensemble I 3:15 PM
- Connie Han 4:15 PM
- Branford Marsalis Quartet 5:45 PM
- Boney James 7:15 PM
- The Roots 9:00 PM
I wanted to catch all the bands on Friday’s show, but, unfortunately, due to my unfamiliarity of the area, and refusal to pay for parking, I ended up taking much longer to get to the Tailgaters Parking. This is a very large lot of patchy grass, meant for as a parking alternative on game day or concerts, for the nearby EverBank Stadium, Daily’s Place, VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, and VyStar Ballpark. This is the first year that the Jazz Festival is setup at Tailgaters, and based on the large area, it seems like a nice upgrade from previous years.
By the time I got through security, Spyro Gyra (saxophonist Jay Beckenstein, guitarist Julio Fernandez, keyboardist Chris Fischer, bassist Scott Ambush, and drummer Lionel Cordew) were already well into their set. The 13x GRAMMY Award-nominated jazz fusion icons last year celebrated their 50th Anniversary (yes, the band’s been around since 1974) with the release of Jubilee (a collection of band’s ever-expanding palette in roughly its first decade of recording from 1977 to 1987).
Next up was American jazz singer Maysa (Maysa Leak). She started her musical career with Stevie Wonder’s backup group Wonderlove. She ended up working with the acid jazz group Incognito, led by Bluey Maunick… and by 1992, she moved to London, and had a massive hit with Incognito’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing.”
Maysa started her set with “Music for Your Soul”, followed by “Hypnotic Love”, a song that she said was about trying to get love from her man. It didn’t work out. Although she was heartbroken about the breakup, instead of crying about it, she wrote that song. The song became a hit and she used the money that she made from the song to buy herself some diamonds to make herself feel better.
Hearing Maysa perform live, it’s fun to see how she’ll update her songs to include her current age (58) to current socials, like being too old for Instagram. She’ll also medley and sample in cover songs, the most interesting one is the “Disco Duck” (as she refers), which had her singing CHIC’s “I Want Your Love”, Ohio Players’ “Love Rollercoaster”, Anita Ward’s “Ring My Bell”, just a few songs in her disco mashup.
The highlight of her set, was a cover of Pat Benatar’s “Love Is a Battlefield”. The Maysa version, re-arranged and re-worked as a slow, sad jazz soulful version, it works much better than the pop song that we’re familiar with. I’ve never heard Maysa’s version it until yesterday, and it’s now my new cover lover favorite song.
What can I say about Kool & the Gang that haven’t been said, before. The band is a legendary band, having been around since 1969. Throughout the years ‘the Gang’ has changed, with mostly new members joining in the early 2000’s as older members retired or died (Kool Bell’s brother Ronald Bell died in 2020). Robert “Kool” Bell is keeping the legacy alive, and the band had him step into the spotlight to say a few words.
Kool said that when they first started, in the 1960s, they didn’t know what to call themselves. They had so many band names, including Soul Town Band and The Flames… but they had to change their name, because James Brown objected (Brown’s band was called the Famous Flames). Eventually, as history would have it, they settled on Kool and the Gang. And since then, they’ve had unbelievable success with their name and funk, jazz, hip-hop songs.
Fans who haven’t heard of their music from the 70s and 80s, their music was introduced to a new generation thanks to Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and their music was sampled by various musicians, such as DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, Ice Cube, Nas, Wu-Tang Clan, The Prodigy, 2Pac, TI, Snoop Dogg, and many, many others.
Kool & the Gang, played some ‘Fresh’ new songs, along with some of their biggest hits, including “Celebration” which closed out their set with a bang. Although that is a well-known song, my own personal favorite is “Joanna”, which sounded perfect when they perform it live. They do all sort of dance moves, like turning the steering wheel dance. You can watch a clip of the performance here.
What makes the Jacksonville Jazz Festival so special is that the entire event is free to attend, including the Piano Competition. You wonder how the organizers are making any money, especially for the talents they are bringing in: Kool and the Gang on Friday night, Trombone Shorty and Janelle Monáe on Saturday night, and The Roots closing out on Sunday. I think there are a couple of factors: the VIP experience, which costs as much as $549, all the pop-up food and drink vendors, and various advertisers and sponsors (like Jacksonville Aviation Authority, Yamaha, and Publix)… they all help make it possible to make this event free of charge.
