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Bluegrass, fado, opera and jazz fuse together at Georgia’s glorious medley of a festival. Kate Connolly falls in love with the music, history and mint juleps
The man who drives me from the airport to my hotel sings for much of the way; the receptionist croons Someone to Watch Over Me as I check in, and in one of the city’s elegant squares a workman performs spirituals in his lunch break, while another strums on his guitar. That Savannah is a city that lives for and thrives on music is clear to me before I even hit the Savannah Music Festival.
I arrive about a week into the proceedings, expecting a colourful apple-pie, foot-tapping mixture of bluegrass and jazz to country and swing; but the range and virtuosity of world-class music, from boogie to Cajun, fado to zydeco – a form of American folk – which I savour over the next few days, comes as something of a surprise.
Savannah, a coastal city in southwest Georgia, boasts a springtime arts marathon that has become a requisite port of call for a growing number of music lovers and musicians from around the world. For me, escaping a European winter to be spirited into this colourful and beguiling city, enveloped in dreamy Spanish moss, magnolia trees and pink and white azaleas, is an added bonus.
Stepping into the cool body of Wesley Monumental Methodist church I receive my first taste of what’s on tap for three weeks every year. With early spring light filtering through the stained-glass, pianist Sebastian Knauer hypnotises a lunchtime audience with Mendelssohn compositions, including Rondo Capriccioso, a quirky sonic portrait of a gondola splashing on the canals of Venice.
On the church steps festival director Rob Gibson, a dapper Georgia native who talks the syrupy southern talk, greets each audience member. Gibson, who founded the now legendary Jazz at the Lincoln Center series in New York in the early 90s before settling in Savannah following 9/11, is credited with rescuing the festival from provincial obscurity and turning it into one of the most talked-about music events in the States.
A former lecturer in American music history at the Juilliard School, he has created something of a musical laboratory where artists from different genres come together to experiment and fuse their sounds in a relaxed and stimulating atmosphere.
Gibson’s connections help lure some of the top names, including jazz greats Wynton and Jason Marsalis, Marcus Roberts and Wycliffe Gordon, English opera tenor Ian Bostridge and the Portuguese Fado singer Mariza.
The eclectic range of the programming is reflected in the 2010 schedule – the most artistically diverse line-up to date. There will be appearances by the Chinese piano wizard Lang Lang, celebrated Malian ngoni player Bassekou Kouyate, Wynton Marsalis’ Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and Cherryholmes, a grammy-nominated family band, whose music has been described as “bluegrass on steroids”.
“I don’t know any other festival in the US that has the breadth of ours,” Gibson tells me over a salmon and spinach salad in Zunzi’s, a popular lunchtime restaurant. Savannah is the perfect backdrop for the festival, he says, describing it as “funky and elegant”, before cycling off to introduce the next concert.
Later, in the Congregation Mikveh Israel synagogue, one of the oldest in America, Cuban guitarist Manuel Barrueco captivates the audience with an exquisite range of renaissance lute works and Spanish dance music, elegantly wiping the perspiration from his brow in between pieces.
The unstuffy and jovial flavour of the festival is captured in that evening’s impromptu gathering of musicians, concert-goers and festival staff at the Circa 1875 wine bar on Whitaker Street. Over a cold beer, Daniel Hope, a British violinst who has been an artistic director of the festival since 2004, explains why he returns to perform year after year. “The experience is unique,” he says. “You spend a week or two weeks together, eating, drinking, going to salsa parties, exploring music, enjoying music and savouring each other’s company in a beautiful setting.”
The party later moves onto Pinkie Master’s, a grungy, moody jukebox joint, which locals affectionately refer to as Stinky Bastards, where Jimmy Carter is said to have stood on the bar and declared his intention to become US president.
The magic and mystique of Savannah which draws people like Hope, is expanded on by Sue Rendeno of Savannah Walks. During a gap between concerts Sue leads me on a fascinating journey through the city’s rich past. She takes me around the Gothic cemetery which, Savannahians boast, is one of the most haunted places in the world; to the old cloth hall that recently lost its trademark golden griffin to a speeding driver who bounced off its outspread wings, smashing it to smithereens; and points out whimsical details in the architecture such as the dolphin-shaped drain spouts.
Further reminders of the city’s musical DNA are the homes of the late composers James Pierpont – responsible for Jingle Bells – and Johnny Mercer, whose lengthy repertoire of hits included Moon River.
We stroll through several of the 21 squares shaded with majestic live oaks that are laid out like stepping stones across the city and connect the festival venues – all of which are easily reachable on foot.
These oases of calm – the most popular is Chippewa Square where a scene from Forrest Gump was shot – are a legacy of the city’s colonial past and the design of settlers who sailed up the Savannah river in early 1733. But it’s thanks to General Sherman, who spared Savannah during his scorched earth march through Georgia during the civil war, that they remain intact (Atlanta, by contrast, was flattened).
If you prefer two wheels to two legs, a good option is to return late at night, when the streets are empty, for a bike tour to experience the city’s highlight, Forsythe Park, with its grand, floodlit cast-iron fountain and check which of the well-documented ghosts are on the prowl.
Back at the festival, by the riverside, children’s big bands are playing to a huge crowd, as part of the Swing Central section of the fortnight’s events. This jazz band competition also lets the youngsters receive lessons from their musical heroes in the hope that they will be inspired to great things in the future.
That evening’s supper is black grouper – a deep-sea fish found along the Savannah coast – at the chic but unpretentious downtown restaurant Cha Bella. It sets me up for the 1920’s vauderville-style Lucas Theatre, which tonight features the New-York-based group Punch Brothers led by one of the world’s most celebrated mandolin players, Chris Thile. When this gaggle of nervously-energetic young string musicians appears I am expecting traditional bluegrass. Instead they dish up a mesmerising series of compositions, at once haunting and playful. A thunder storm rages outside as they sing about everything from a honey-haloed teacher, to sheep dogs, punch bowls and drunken girls combining pithy lyrics (‘the night was a chalkboard with a fingernail moon’) with witty banter. “You guys are really sweet, can we keep you?” says 28-year-old Thile, to the whoops of the females in the audience.
The following morning I bump into the Punch Brothers – undoubtedly my festival highlight. They’re in the B Matthew’s Eatery on East Bay Street, tucking into grits, scrambled eggs, wheatberry bread and hashbrowns, washed down with mimosas and mint juleps, before they embark on a four-hour drive to their next concert in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
“Shame we have to bail out, it’s just awesome here,” says Noam Pikelny, the band’s blue-eyed banjo player. “The town is full of a gorgeous line-up of artists, many of them our heroes, who we’d love to hear.”
Savannah’s eccentric air is perhaps most memorably evoked in John Berendt’s best-selling 1994 novel, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The tale of murder, black and white magic and a bawdy black drag queen named The Lady Chablis, urges visitors not to take Savannah at face value: “You mustn’t be taken in by the moonlight and magnolias,” Berendt writes. “There’s more to Savannah than that.”
The elegant home of protagonist Jim Williams (played by Kevin Spacey in the 1997 film version directed by Clint Eastwood) can be found on Monterey Square. And the 51-year old Lady Chablis still occasionally performs at Club One on Jefferson Street.
The close proximity of everything in this city means you’re never far from the festival’s goings on. In the basement of the Avia hotel I eavesdrop on a laughter-filled rehearsal by Hope’s chamber music quintet which is practising Schubert’s Death and the Maiden.
Later that evening, in more sombre mood, they perform the Schubert followed by Elgar’s piano quintet in A minor at the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, which feels like a posh living room.
Afterwards musicians and festival staff seek some R ‘n’ R at a “roots ‘n’ twang” concert by the tiny-waisted, sweet-voiced Lovell Sisters. They charm the audience with their song Paulita Maxwell, a sassy tribute to Billy the Kid’s girlfriend and a great way to round off the evening.
When my festival run comes to an end I toy with the idea of extending my stay and foregoing two days in New York, so torn do I feel about leaving behind the charms of the Deep South. Its wide-ranging musical delights mean that Savannah competes with some of the very best music festivals in the world.
Add in, of course, its azaleas brushed by the warm breeze, the succulent Georgia white shrimp, and the steady flow of mint juleps, and as far as I’m concerned, there are plenty of compelling reasons to return.
• US Airways flies from Gatwick to Savannah, via Charlotte for £349; Delta from Gatwick to Savannah via Atlanta from £399. Savannah Bed and Breakfast Inn (+1 888 238 0518) doubles from $99 B&B. Avia Hotel (+1 912 233 2116) from $135. The 2010 festival runs from March 18 to April 3.
