Cedar Walton's three-year association with The Jazz Messengers is what drew me to his set at Harro East last night. The cat is one of the remaining legends still running up the odometer. I'd seen him before and remembered him being a little more impulsive than he was this time around. I found myself longing for a little strange. Although his drummer was on fire.

Speaking of drummers, Mike Melito is simply a fascinating beater. His playing is so un-calculated and yet so precise. His syncopation redefines the term without being difficult or too obtuse. So often I'll watch jazz drummers take flight, waiting for them to kick into a signature I can read. Not with Melito; everything makes some kind sense. I guess I just enjoy watching him play.

Melito's sextet was easygoing and tight last night in the Big Tent. Bob Sneider (the RIJF version of Forrest Gump or a Swiss Army knife; he can be anywhere/do anything) was in this group as well. Sneider has been particularly prolific the last two times I've seen him, throwing in these brilliant little cross-eyed, dissonant accents throughout his solos. The whole group hard-bopped classic and strong, filling the tent with big brass and Blakey blue notes.

As the Jazz Fest expands its waistline to cover more and more of downtown's real estate, we're all tightening our belts from all the exercise we get. The trek from Harro East to Xerox Auditorium almost warrants a cab. By the time I made it, the Jongo Trio was rolling out the red carpet polyrhythmic style for singer Maria Farinha. Farinha shifted so smoothly between language and scat that it was almost impossible to tell where the Portuguese ended and the jazz jive began. The band's bossa nova was beautifully, smolderingly intense as it blurred complex rhythms with seemingly simple ones. I say seemingly because when I tried to clap or snap along, I was immediately faced with my own painful lack of rhythm.

For the third night in a row I've made the pilgrimage to Bernunzio's to visit Lonnie Johnson's 1941 Gibson J-100. Bossman Bernunzio has been gracious enough to let me limp around its fingerboard to soak up the mojo. It is an awesome piece of history hanging on the wall. If you're like me you might be tempted to genuflect when you see it.

Stephane Wrembel's second set in the Big Tent was intense. Wrembel's electric departure from the Gypsy genre's typically tight, terse, acoustic strain brought it to another level. Gypsy jazz guitar players play aggressively, but plugged-in the music sounded aggressive and a little antagonistic within its pleasant jump. Wrembel was staggeringly fast and flawless as he dragged postwar jump into this century.