Review: Porchfest No. 3, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025

Rock trio Nice Hockey wrote their “City of My Dreams” about Montreal, but Saturday those words fit a north-side Schenectady neighborhood in and around its historic GE Plot. There seven porches – well, six plus a church – hosted 14 musical acts in the third annual Porchfest, a nomadic, free-music festival that draws ever-larger crowds.

Nice Hockey, above; Kevin Carey Group below

Looking down from a Wendell Ave. porch wide enough for his seven-piece jazz combo, keyboardist Kevin Carey pronounced the throng below on portable chairs or blankets to be three times larger than last year’s; the weather was equally perfect for both.

A bit before noon, the Backyard Brass, one of three brass ensembles, played classy tunes on an Avon Rd. side porch. Formed as a COVID-era hobby band, they’ve outlasted the plague through happy persistence, aiming their five trumpets Saturday at a somewhat rocky “Masterpiece Theater” theme to start. They played smoother in the peppy syncopated “America” from “West Side Story,” then a mellow “Shenandoah” as the audience grew.

Backyard Brass, above; Alex Torres and His Latin Orchestra, below

Brass Abbey followed a few blocks away on Douglas Rd., a polished, playful crew whose early numbers I missed to catch Alex Torres and His Latin Orchestra – our best musical party on wheels – who started at the same time (noon) on Rugby Rd. A Latin rhythm section with a crisp jazz horn section and strong singers, the Orchestra plays everywhere, all the time, achieving a muscular swing in cha-cha, meringue and Cuban tunes that got folks dancing.

Brass Abbey

After a happy taste of Latin, walking down Rugby, right on Wendell and left down Douglas Rd., I caught Brass Abbey in a clever medley of patriotic flag-wavers before injecting Duke Ellington’s “Caravan” with quotes including TV themes (“Get Smart”!) and other surprises, a fun Name-That-Tune puzzle.

Vocal Jazz Vanguard, above; from left: Kaitlyn Fay, Dave Shoudy (bassist), Jeanine Ouderkirk and Mowgli Gianitti. Below, John LeRoy, left, Dave Shoudy, Jeanine Ouderkirk (obscured) and Kaitlyn Fay

Nearby (east in Douglas, a short block north on Wendell) the Vocal Jazz Vanguard – singers Kaitlyn Fay, Jeanine Ouderkirk and Mowgli Gianitti, plus pianist Jon LeRoy, bassist Dave Shoudy and drummer Cliff Brucker – shuffled through the Great American Songbook with exciting results. The Lambert, Hendricks and Ross classic “Centerpiece” united all three voices in bluesy swing, or vice versa. Solo or harmonized, the singers worked wonderfully well with the players.

A more subdued mood settled over the crowd on Stratford where the meditative, quiet classical duo of two Melanies – flautist Chirignan and pianist Hardage – cast a serene spell, gentle and sweet. Like chamber music in miniature, the pieces had an inviting calm grace.

Above, The Chirignan-Hardage Duo; Melanie Chirignan, flute, left; and Melanie Hardage, piano. Below, Unken Brew, from left: Bruce Thompson, Sam Katz and Dave Liebman

Back on Rugby, Unken Brew went for rowdy bluegrass zip, bluesy depth and, as guitarist-singer Dave Lieberman announced, “enough stomp to keep the bears away,” scanning the shady streets in mock alarm. With mandolinist Sam Katz and guitarist/dobro player Bruce Thompson, Katz revved the Flatt & Scruggs antique “100 Years From Now” and they never looked back, a spirited set with stringed-things playing as precise as their harmonized vocals. 

Kevin Carey’s Grpup, nearly as big as Torres’s Latin Orchestra, brought similar strength to Carey’s modernist-but-melodic jazz compositions in small/big band style. Top players gave all-in sections a brisk cohesion and soloed over the moon. While Carey’s piano led strong, saxophonists Keith Pray (alto) and Matt Steckler (tenor) got the most spotlight time, with trombonist Phil Pandori and trumpeter Omar Williams also holding their own. Bassist Dave Shoudy switched from acoustic bass with the Vocal Jazz Vanguard to electric with Carey and stayed right where he was, playing busier than he had with the singers and linking tight with drummer Dave Berger. The mellow swing of “Easy In Blue” set up the complex, episodic “D.O.A.,” Carey letting his soloists fly before tapping his head to bring back the main melody.

Above, Kevin Carey Group horns, from left: Phil Pandori, Matt Steckler, Keith Pray, Omar Williams

Smaller scale, decidedly Latin, Bossamba leaned into the Antonio Carlos Jobim songbook as Maggie McDougall sang in English or Portuguese with equal fluency. Pianist Wayne Hawkins led in one of his own Brazilian-inspired instrumentals as McDougall admired from the sidelines and bassist Lou Pappas and drummer Mark Foster dug deep in this complex number. She reclaimed her lead spot with Jobim’s classic “Photograph.”

Bossamba above, singer Maggie McDougall, below

Porchfest’s silliest band, Signature Brass, brought Oktoberfest fun to the corner of Rugby and Ardsley, wearing lederhosen and dirndl and going gleefully oompah in smile-pumping party songs. Tunes felt like a toast of celebration – and not just “The Chicken Dance” – although “Ein Prost” didn’t excite the can-can dancing that leader-trumpeter-Porchfest organizer Steve Weisse hoped to ignite. They played it straight, and really well, Sousaphone player Jeremy Pearson pushing from below and Weisse carrying the melodies up top.

Signature Brass, above; Chicken-dancing fans, below

Above, Steve Weisse toasts the crowd; below, Nice Hockey rocks the same porch

Next, Nice Hockey rocked on bassist Chad Rogers’s own Rugby and Ardsley porch, bringing the most joyful mood of the whole fun day as kids from toddler to kindergarten age danced, jumped and ran around in a dust-raising happy frenzy of music-pumped energy. Parents – the same folks who did “The Chicken Dance” there – enjoyed their kids’ happy motion, and the band’s. It felt like neighborhoods should do.

Chad Rogers

In 2024 Porchfest, the COVID-positive Rogers had to play from his own living room, looking through its bay window at his bandmates. Saturday, he joined guitarist Eric Ayotte and drummer Harrison Schmitt on the porch where they started with “Siren Swell” about the scream of ambulances passing on Rugby, a busy route to Ellis Hospital. Even that song sounded happy – and so did others about taking nights off to relax from over-busy lives, how life is better together and how to keep toddlers entertained.

Eric Ayotte of Nice Hockey, which also plays as the Eric Ayotte Band

The music did that, for everybody, in the most rocking and upbeat set that whole sun splashed day. The most stylistically varied and best attended Porchfest yet, it felt like a neighborhood should feel, on a perfect afternoon.

On foot, 12,000 steps, starting at my house just blocks from the nearest porch-stage, I still didn’t manage to see everything. I missed the young fiddlers of the Empire State Youth Orchestra CHIME program, blues-jazz-rockers the Evidence, the innovative jazz group Yolanda Bush Cool Water Collective and the Calvary Choir and Musicians.

But the music I did catch all worked just fine, and I appreciated the two porta-johns and two food set-ups.

And, oh yeah – meanwhile, Union football won their first game of the season just half a block west of the Douglas Rd. porch-stage. There, hosts Barbara and Tony opened their home – bathroom, drinks and snacks – to the players. And another host, away for the weekend, had friends open her home and porch to players and fans.

ENCORES:

After playing with Kevin Carey’s Group, Matt Steckler played Saturday at Stella Pasta Bar with his new MS Organ Trio with Jon Leroy, organ (he played Porchfest with the Vocal Jazz Vanguard) and Pete Sweeney, drums.

Nice Hockey plays the Schenectady Green Market at noon today (Sunday).

Alex Torres and His Latin Orchestra celebrate 45 years together on Nov. 1 at Universal Preservation Hall.