Annual Jazz fest has date with Bigfork

By ALEX STRICKLAND / Bigfork Eagle

When the Glacier Jazz Stampede rolls into Kalispell each year bringing musical acts from all over the country, the valley's biggest town usually hogs all the fun.

But this year, thanks to cooperaion between festival organizers, the Bigfork Chamber of Commerce, all four Bigfork banks and Bigfork High School, the festival will send one of their best acts down to Bigfork to play a free show for students and the public at the BHS gym.

"We're trying to work this as a whole valley promotion, not just Kalispell," said festival co-chair John Van, a member of the Montana Dixieland Society that organizes the event.

The festival itself runs from October 2-5, mostly in Kalispell, and Big Mama Sue will come to Bigfork on Friday, October 3 at noon.

In Kalispell, shows take place at various venues, including the Outlaw Inn, the Red Lion Inn and the Kalispell Eagles Lodge.

Van and co-chair Gary Fischer said the festival is one of the few still surviving in Montana after similar celebrations have folded in recent years.

"We're about the only show in town anymore," Van said.

Unlike Missoula's yearly Buddy DeFranco Jazz Festival, which features lots of modern jazz, Van and Fischer said the Glacier Jazz Stampede is almost exclusively traditional jazz. And with 17 bands from as far away as Southern California and the East Coast, there will be no shortage of what Van called OKOM, or Our Kind of Music.

"Kids love our kind of music," Van said, noting that on Friday night at the Red Lion in Kalispell the festival hosts a special swing dance specifically tailored for the younger crowd that wants to come out and try their dancing shoes. In years past, Van said it's been one of the most popular events of the festival.

But kids aren't the only ones who are attracted to a night of cool cat dancing. Van said that last year a bus load of retirees from the Buffalo Hill nursing home came down to cut a rug and watch the kids dance.

For people more interested in a special musical event that requires a little less footwork, the final day of the festival will feature a free gospel service at the Red Lion that can accomodate up to 1,200 people.

"Traditional jazz is American music," Fischer said. "It's our heritage, but it's kind of slipping away. We're trying to preserve it."