Some of my favorite Jazz Fest moments seem to come from acts I wasn't expecting to like, or even see in the first place. But this year definitely got off to an unexpected start for me because my favorite part of the first day had little to do with music. Wait, that's not true -- it had everything to do with music; it's just that there was no music playing. And, though it wasn't officially on the bill, I can safely say that it was just as much of a legitimate performance as any of Friday night's other performances.

Here's what happened: after saxophonist Eric Alexander's opening set at the Montage, Harold Mabern, Alexander's pianist, could be found holding court with a small audience of about four or five people. Boy, did they get treated to a show. Dropping names and jokes with a rapid-fire delivery (not unlike the most frenetic Charlie Parker solo), Mabern had ‘em ooh-ing and ahh-ing and laughing out loud with priceless anecdotes involving Oscar Peterson, Nat King Cole, Hank Jones, Art Tatum, etc., etc.

Mabern, 72, disclosed that Art Tatum "loved his Pabst Blue Ribbon," and that there was an announcer at Birdland who intentionally mispronounced the musicians' names unless they bribed him. He told a story about how he first arrived in New York with $2500 tucked in each shoe, dropped his bags at a hotel, and promptly went to Birdland for the first time. He peppered these gems with musical analysis on the aforementioned players -- why Art Tatum developed a style where he sounded like two people playing at once, for example -- and proposed that musicians aren't as well-mannered these days as they used to be.

It's really too bad there wasn't a camera running. I watched for about three minutes and could barely keep my jaw off the ground. But if Mabern were to get booked as a speaker for next year, I'd be the first in line, no joke. And incidentally, his dexterity on the piano -- specifically his ability to play independently with each arm -- was one of the highlights of the Eric Alexander Quartet's show. The band played to a capacity crowd with the reserved, classy swagger we associate with jazz's golden era, the period that Mabern would shed so much light on to a lucky few after the show.

Whether or not Finnish pianist Kari Ikonen has a clear read on how much subdued, harmonically challenging music restless American audiences can tolerate, he must be applauded for sticking to his guns. And he was applauded by the won-over crowd that stuck with him for his first set at the Lutheran Church.

Ikonen appeared with his sextet, Karikko, but broke the band down into smaller groups at various points. As evidenced on the ensemble's latest album, "Oceanographic," Karikko can clearly swing. But the group takes a far more adventurous approach to rhythm live, often letting the music hang in the air for long stretches that veer toward ponderous chamber music.

Ikonen introduced one piece as "impossible to translate into English," explaining that it was a "tango in 3/4." The piece was arguably impossible to translate into your standard jazz vocabulary too, with both the tango and 3/4 elements remaining somewhat unrecognizable. Ultimately, Karikko provided the very challenge we hope to get from jazz, and matched the austerity of the music with a new, utterly distinct kind of beauty. And when the band suddenly shifted into a burning swing groove toward the end, it still laced the music with fresh textures in the form of solos from Moog, cello, and flute.