Only one photo here but this is a definite highlight of summertime in central CT, USA.

For six Mondays between mid-July and mid-August, the rolling lawn of Bushnell Park, behind the State House becomes the perfect amphitheatre for this series of FREE jazz concerts. People bring chairs and blankets, dogs, kids, frisbees, all sorts of picnics – with wine or beer (we are a very well-behaved bunch of music lovers!) – and mood lighting which more often than not just bug candles doing double duty. People stroll in after work hours and settle in for any or all of the three and a half hours of great instrumental jammin’ and jazz singing from the groups and soloists.

This year, a couple of concerts got moved due to bad weather, a standard ‘plan B’ so things don’t have to be cancelled… walk or drive up the hill to Asylum Hill Congregational Church. This is another well-known music venue in town, not simply the location for the annual Boar’s Head Festival they produce just after New Years (an amazing celebration of Christmas that you should experience at least once). I skipped the indoor concerts only because I wanted the enjoyment of lying around outdoors – and I seem to recall that the church doesn’t let alcohol inside.

Monday night jazz Hartford CT

This last evening in the 2017 series was perfect weather – clear skies, very comfortable temperatures and hardly any skeeters, bug candles notwithstanding. When sunset was past and darkness settled over the crowd, lighted smart phones popped up like so many static fireflies. A flock of swifts wheeled in formation overhead but I was hoping to see at least a few silhouettes of little brown bats – they should have been out gobbling up their body weight in mosquitoes. Maybe next year.