It's hard to imagine that I've done this 10 times; stomping around downtown to the direct --- and indirect --- annual blasts of syncopation, sophistication, and elation.

Started things off this year with my pick for the best at 2008's Jazz Fest, Billy's Band. The hype was in full swing and the line to get in to Harro East snaked all the way into Chestnut Street. As usual, the band played great. However, a lot of the magic found in the band's fractured English and musical dynamics was lost in venue's boomy acoustics. Besides you get people in a room that big, and they can't make out the band fully, they're gonna talk and talk.

Meanwhile Billy and the boys beat it out on stage like ragamuffin buskers, mixing Tom Waits songs in English with their own Russian to create a bilingual, street-savvy swing. The opening was particularly sweet, as frontman Billy Novik took Waits' Beat-style opening from "Nighthawks at the Diner" and added local and situational relevance. "Jesus Gonna Be Here" had heathens like me clapping along as if we believed he actually was.

But those seeking rapture got a pantload when Novik dropped the doghouse, took hold of the guitar solo, and brought the room to dead silence and rapt attention as he pulled out a heartbreaking rendition of "Blue Valentine." Despite the sound it was remarkable. It should be even better at Kilbourn Hall when the band plays Saturday night.

In front of a huge crowd at the Gibbs Street Stage, Hazmat Modine was relatively unconventional and fortified across the board with an arsenal of two guitars, two harps (some looking like they had been built by Ed "Big Daddy" Roth), sousaphone, trumpet, and drums. The harps frequently blew in tandem and every instrument at one time or another copped to holding or adding to the big, bad beat. This was the funkiest band I've ever scene that wasn't a funk band, the bluesiest harp-fronted outfit that wasn't a blues band... it's as if I wasn't there. Maybe you saw me: let me know. You see, often --- too often --- when a band seeks out new time signatures and tones, they get lost. Hazmet Modine isn't lost, This band is gone.

I've seen Mose Allison about four times now, and he essentially does the same set. In fact, the pictures I took this year look exactly like the ones form two years ago. Regardless, Allison piled 'em in to Kilbourn Hall for his witty repartee as his fingers did the walking. One line that had me going: "Who's skinny, who's fat, who will turn up your thermostat?"

Saturday night I'm looking forward to Keb' Mo' at Kodak Hall, Los Lonely Boys at East & Chestnut, and Blaggards at Abilene.