For anyone interested in understanding the Celtic roots of American traditional music, or enjoying the inventiveness of current practitioners of the form, the 14th annual Sebastopol Celtic World Music Festival brings together world-class talent from Sweden, Spain, Canada and the U.S., as well as around the British Isles, to Sonoma County CA September 19-21. Headlining performers include Scottish quartet The Tannahill Weavers, Swedish folk experimentalists Väsen, and Irish fiddle and guitar duo Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill.

The event includes evening concerts Friday and Saturday at the Sebastopol Cultural Community Center, an early evening Saturday concert/reception at Restaurant Eloise and a full slate of music, dance, workshops, vendors and more in Sabastopol's Laguna Youth Park. Each event is ticketed separately, or a full festival pass is priced at $180. The event is produced by Cumulus Presents, which also stages the great Kate Wolf Memorial Music Festival as well as individual concerts in Sebastopol.

The gates open on 4:30 today for the 12th annual Greater Ozarks Blues Festival in downtown Springfield, MO (the address of the unnamed venue is 504 W. Sunshine, Springfield MO 65807). 

This year will feature a local favorite, the ABS Band, along with several national-level heavy hitters during each of the festival's two days.

The Grand Canyon Music Festival has won the ASCAP Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous programming and here’s what’s in store for the second weekend of it’s 25^th Silver Anniversary Season.  Friday, Sept. 12 and Saturday, 13, 2008. 

The festival presents pianist Joel Fan and the Enso String Quartet.  These artists have garnered much high acclaim, The Boston Globe calls them “superb”, “extraordinary” says the Village Voice.  Joel Fan is described as “versatile and sensitive pianist” by the New York Times.

The first four days of the annual IBMA conference in Nashville is all about the business side of bluegrass, but  the weekend is all for the fans. The IBMA announced the lineup for its 2008 Bluegrass Fan Fest, running October 3-5 at the Nashville Convention Center—and it offers a fabulous assembly of talent for the serious fan.

With more than 60 acts appearing on two stages, plus a packed schedule of workshops, fiddle championship and exhibit floor, there are more great performers than can be listed here. Included are many of the top traditional acts in the business, but for my money, the focus is on younger breakthough acts such as Cadillac Sky, Grasstowne, Sierra Hull & HIghway 111, The Infamous Stringdusters, The Freight Hoppers, The Circuit Riders, The Greencards and others. Some big names from the country music mainstream will also be on view, including Vince Gill, Kathy Mattea and Michael Martin Murphy.

Among the highlights of the upcoming Berkeley Old-Time Music Convention are the instrumental workshops led by the featured festival performers. Space is limited and pre-registration is required. The instructors include Rayna Gellert (fiddle), Paul Brown (banjo), Evo Bluestein (autoharp) and more.

This past weekend's Slow Food Rocks music festival followed a simple formula, much like the ideology that spawned the original Slow Foods Movement: combine pinches of fresh ingredients, toss liberally and simmer over slow heat until bubbling. Add a hint of spice and you've got a weekend of funky jams-not too heavy but satisfying in the hot midday sun of San Francisco's Fort Mason.

Fans taking in the sounds at a previous, quite sunny Sedona Jazz On The Rocks Festival.

The 27th edition of the Sedona Jazz On The Rocks Festival, the best and most thorough jazz celebration in Arizona by a significant margin, will start off with a pre-film dinner at 5:30 p.m on Tuesday, September 23rd. The film to be shown immediately afterwards will be a jazz documentary, entitled Trying to Get Good: The Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon, with the first night finally being capped by a performance by local band Soundscape Sedona.

From there, the festival will claim restaurants, clubs, and resorts across the small central Arizona town of Sedona, including a full day of jazz on Saturday, the 27th, at the festival's traditional home base venue, the Radisson Poco Diablo Resort.

The Steep Canyon Rangers will host Mountain Song Festival  Saturday, September 13 at the Brevard Music Center in Brevard NC. Boasting as strong and interesting a line-up as a one day event could offer, this festival can be said to be without headliners as every performer on the bill is a headliner. In order of appearance, the festival features The Steep Canyon Rangers, Cherryholmes, Tim O’Brien, and Sam Bush. Except for Bush, each band will perform twice. The Sam Bush Band will close the day with a ninety minute set beginning at 8:30 PM. Tickets cost $40.00 and can be purchased at a number of outlets as well as on-line.

The Whttington-Pfohl Auditorium at the Brevard Music Center is an 1800 seat open air, covered auditorium that is also the host of a wide range of other musical activities in the summer. Located on 140 acres of in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, the center contains 145 buildings used for lodging, practice, and rehersal purposes.

Oakland's Art & Soul Festival featured an eclectic lineup as diverse as the city itself. Saturday, the first day of the festival the Plaza stage presented Jazz and Latin Jazz acts. Ray Obiedo Jazz guitarist and his Urban Latin Jazz Project delivered their unique Latin Jazz which is richly infused with funk sounds, particularly original tunes like Slow Hot Wind. Their tune Child Dance featured Brazilian percussion rhythms to Ray's funky licks on guitar. Ray has performed and recorded with the likes of Herbie Hancock, and Sheila E. His pianist is also the pianist for Etta James. Ray explained that his brand of Latin jazz is: "Definitely a west coast Latin jazz it does not adhere strictly to Afro-Cuban styles, my music is a diverse hybrid of music I grew up with here in the East Bay, and I was influenced by various styles native to my hometown in Richmond. R&B and Funk were definitely among these."

This summer has been packed to the brim with music festivals, many of which have exceeded the lineup quality and ticket sales of their predecessors.  There was Bonnaroo in Tennessee, Lollapalooza in Chicago, plus a group of brand new festivals that were launched, including SF's Outside Lands and Michigan's Rothbury.  It's been a festival season of epic proportions and needless to say, next summer will have a hard act to follow.  Festival-goers have been spoiled by the wealth of bands that have appeared at these events, making it likely that they'll turn their noses up at anything less than Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, and Rage Against the Machine all on the same bill, as they should.  Fans pay good money and deserve to have their cake and eat it too.  Especially since the summer season is pushing all the way through September, these big-name festivals had better start accumulating their lineups ASAP.  It's sort of like London's fear of falling short in the 2012 Olympics after China's spectacular opening ceremony.  Eventually, a wall will be hit and it simply can't get any better.  But until then, music festivals continue to induce the dropping of thousands of jaws, and will continue to for at least another month.