The Yellowjackets are part of the festival's regular flavoring. Started as Robben Ford's accompaniment group, the group has turned out to be one of the most important and successful jazz-rock fusion groups of the last two decades. Bass player Jimmy Haslip, keyboard player Russell Ferrante, sax player Bob Mintzer and drummer Marcus Baylor, four top musicians, recently released another new record. Mint Jam is a live album with eight new pieces and new versions of Yellowjackets classics like Run for your Life, Evening News, Tortoise and the Hare and Statue of Liberty. The Yellowjackets, whose individual members also have successful solo projects (Bob Mintzer, for instance, won a Grammy for his bigband tribute to Count Basie), have had a fair number of line-up changes. Mintzer joined the group in 1990 and made the sound fuller. In '99 William Kennedy left the band and Peter Erskine came to drum for a while. After that the rhythm section's vacancy stayed open for a while, but with the arrival of Marcus Baylor and a new management and label, it seems rest returned t to the band.
