The second annual Jazz and Art Festival on July 14, 1985 featured many of the same musicians as the previous year: Rebecca Parris, Alex Elin, Semenya McCord and the Big Band Express led by Greg Hopkins and Wayne Naus.
Semenya McCord, Joe Hunt, Alex Elin from News-Tribune
The weather cooperated again. Mario Boccabella was quoted in the News-Tribune, “The guy upstairs really watches over us…Every time we have one of these things outdoors, we have perfect weather.”
Rebecca Parris
According to the newspaper about 250 people attended.
View from the lawn
Although this was probably a somewhat larger crowd than the year before we still didn’t reach a break-even point, let alone make a profit. Mario had his whole family there cooking hot dogs, hamburgers and pepper steak subs. I doubt he made much money on the food either because the dogs sold for 50 cents, the hamburgers were 75 cents and the pepper steak subs were a dollar!
Mario and his family cooking
Eric Jackson, Ron Della Chiesa and Tony Cennamo were the MC’s again. Ron made the following encouraging comment. “This reminds me of the early days of the Newport Jazz Festival. It started out very small at a private mansion and grew to be a huge event. Hopefully that will happen here.”
Nancy Alimansky and Ron Della Chiesa
Only time would tell.
highland jazz memories 