Jazz, which usually comes out at night, happened in broad daylight in San Francisco, a time when traditional jazz musicians are traditionally at home, sleeping.
Not on Saturday, though, for the opening day of the 36th annual Fillmore Jazz Festival. The lawn chairs were out, the sunscreen was out, the dark glasses were out. Jazz musicians often wear dark glasses, but this time it was of necessity.
“I love jazz,” said festival-goer Ron Leve of Santa Rosa. “And today you get jazz without the alcohol. You can pay attention to the music. It’s America’s music. It’s organic and it leads to everything else.”
If that sounded a little out there, it could be because jazz musicians and their fans are a little out there.
“Jazz is self-contained music and I’m a self-contained person,” said Fred Ireland, who brought his folding chair from San Leandro and plopped it in front of the stage at Fillmore and California streets. “What does jazz mean? It transports me. It means what it means. You have the notes and the spaces between the notes, which are also notes.”
First up was the Berkeley quintet Never Weather. Band leader Dillon Vado said the only reason to be a jazz musician is after you have decided you can be nothing else.
“Logistically, it makes no sense,” said Vado, who just spent $10,000 to put out a new CD which has sold two dozen copies. “You have to be willing to die for jazz. It’s crazy, it’s bonkers. That’s how it is. You live your life broke.”
Trumpeter Josh Reed said playing jazz in the sunshine and a chill wind is tricky stuff. The trumpet starts out cold. Then it gets warm, when you blow it or when the sun comes out from behind the clouds. Then it gets cold again. The changing temperature means his silver horn keeps going out of tune, and Reed lamented he would need to push and pull on his tuning slide several dozen times before the set was over.
“You don’t want to go flat in the middle of a solo,” Reed said, giving the slide a yank in the middle of a tune called “Morbique.”
The historically African American Fillmore district, like many parts of town, once featured live music coming from seemingly every doorway. Restaurants, bars and nightclubs hired live musicians. Recordings, DJs, streaming and different tastes changed all that. Large big bands became smaller big bands. Then they became small bands, then no bands.
The Fillmore festival harkens back to the old days and, with any luck, serves as harbinger to the new ones.
Jazz fan Julia Weinberg, at 14 months of age, was already attending her second Fillmore festival. Her father, David, said he hoped that Never Weather’s inspired drum banging would keep Julia awake until her nap time in another hour, perhaps the only practical application of jazz at the festival.
“Jazz is part of our history,” David said. “Part of our old history and part of our new history.”
Ten acts will perform on the three festival stages on Saturday and 10 more on Sunday. Admission is free but festival goers seeking a guaranteed seat should bring it with them.
Besides the music, the festival features the usual line up of food and craft booths. Up for grabs were turkey legs, jewelry, eyeglasses, cell phone plans, $10 beers and tie-dyed garments.
Artist Rufus Chalmers of Sacramento was offering his pastel protraits of John Coltrane, for $3,000, and Thelonious Monk, for $2,700. He was waiting to make his first sale.
Nearby, Chris Gurdal was having better luck with his handmade $8 furniture dusters. He glues the fleece to the wooden sticks himself.
“I like jazz but I’m also into make a living,” he said. “I’ll sell here, I’ll sell at a blues festival or a rock and roll festival. It’s all music. And everyone needs furniture dusters.”
Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com