On Saturday, August 24, perfect weather and surroundings saw thousands of attendees attend the annual Fuller Moon Arts Festival at Mountain Lake Park in Warwick, showcasing local talent and offering unique arts experiences including workshops, belly dancing, circle singing, printmaking, live music performances of many genres, food trucks, a lakeside bar and a curated maker market.

At 5 p.m., guests gathered at the Lakeside Pavilion to listen to a music and dance performance titled “Beyond Jazz,” an ensemble that includes several notable jazz musicians and choreography by Melissa Padham-Maass, director of the Warwick Center for the Performing Arts and the Warwick Dance Collective. Musicians included Ian Smit on fretless and headless guitar, Ed Littman on guitar, Jay Brunka on bass, Steve Rubin on drums/percussion, Joe Vincent Tranchina on keyboards, and Rick Savage on trumpet and flugelhorn. After a brief introduction by Padham-Maass, they began playing a free-flowing, spontaneously improvised piece to their loosely structured choreography, to which the dance group itself also contributed as the music continued, one group seemingly amplifying the other.

Meanwhile, dancers Jacob Taylor and Pam Sorensen delighted the audience with an exciting pas de deux improvisation, while the musicians accompanied them with a smooth, intermittent sound that at times recalled the rhythms and creativity of Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays, with Tranchina matching just enough to Littman’s exciting guitar riffs. Brunka’s unwavering bass playing and Rubin’s artistry on the drums added an incredible spice to the overall performance that had to remind the audience that this type of performance was unrehearsed. Smit’s deft fingerwork on his guitar filled the few inevitable gaps that occurred during an improvised concert. And leader Rick Savage’s melodious horn playing was the icing on this group’s cake. It’s no wonder that Savage Rick has performed and/or recorded with Tania Maria, Gerry Mulligan, Jack McDuff, Mel Lewis, Nancy Wilson, Tony Bennett, Mel Torme, Toshiko Aikioshi, Warne Marsh, Randy Brecker, Michael Jackson, Daniel Ponce, Nestor Torres, Henry Mancini and many others.

But the credentials of the other band members are equally impressive. Steve Rubin, for example, founded the Hudson Valley Jazz Festival; Joe Vincent Tranchina was voted Hudson Valley Jazz Musician of the Year in 2010 in the Times Herald-Record’s annual Best Of readers’ poll and is a 25-time recipient of the annual ASCAP Plus Award (Jazz category) for “creative contributions to American music.” Littman is a composer and master of music technology. Brunka is an educator and sought-after musician, from classical music to gypsy jazz, R&B and swing, and co-founder of the improvisational group Beyond Jazz. He is at home on electric and acoustic bass. Smit has toured and performed for 30 years in Ireland, Scotland, the UK and throughout Europe and the US. Irish Music Magazine nominated him three times for Album of the Year, and France’s Trad Magazine voted him in its top 10 albums of the year alongside artists such as Neil Young.

Later in the program, the audience was invited to go onto the dance floor and perform their own improvised dances to the music that continued for hours. Young and old alike enjoyed the atmosphere.

The Fuller Moon Arts Festival celebrates the marriage of performance, art and nature against the magical backdrop of the lake. The City of Warwick purchased the 85 acres of land of the former Kutz Camp for $6.5 million as part of its Community Preservation Plan, funded by property transfer taxes. The property consists of a lake, two pools, tennis courts, outdoor and indoor event and art space, several cabins, a central sewer system, several wells and a trail system. In December 1961, at the suggestion of then-retired Major League Baseball star Jackie Robinson, Chock Full O’ Nuts paid $300,000 to purchase the camp, formerly known as Grossman’s Dude Ranch, for its employees. He renamed the facility “Camp Utopia,” which later became the site of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) Kutz Camp. Warwick purchased the camp property in 2020. For more information about Mountain Lake Park, visit mtlakepark.com.