Bumbershoot delivers sun, smiles, jazz, laughs

Lulu Granquist — with a head of wispy blond hair and colored plugs lodged diagonally in her ears — earnestly dipped a plastic spoon into a cup of Ben & Jerry's chocolate ice cream.

Down below on the Memorial Stadium stage, an indie rock band from Texas — also called Spoon — dipped into the psyche of the crowd, sending out dark and driving sounds and sharp lyrics.

"This is her third time," said Lulu's mom, Rischel, who has been coming to Bumbershoot since she was a kid.

Lulu's got a head start on Mom. She's only 3 years old.

That's the way it was Sunday at the 35th-anniversary edition of Bumbershoot, an unseasonably hot day with jostling, happy crowds jamming every walkway, every which way, and Seattleites passing on a tradition from generation to generation.

Though most were older than Lulu, Bumbershooters did tilt toward youth this year, at least on Sunday, which had a lineup crowded with hip-hop, heavy-metal, world-beat and rock bands, headlined by the biggest name of the festival: rapper Kanye West. The mass of teens and adolescents was divided into under-21s and over-21s, with the underage kids hanging out around the International Fountain. The over-21s crowded the beer gardens.

The youthful tinge made the festival seem livelier, even more friendly. "High five, sir?" a smiling teenage girl offered passers-by north of the fountain. Many took her up on it.

Another young girl, not far away, held up a handmade sign: "Free Hugs and Smiles!"

Jazz draws a crowd

"This is amazing," said attorney Peggy Herman of the return of jazz to the Northwest Court. Herman was sitting in the beer garden with a group of friends, listening to veteran jazz man Floyd Standifer, part of this year's excellent Seattle Jazz Showcase.

As the day went on, the crowd spilled farther and farther onto the concrete, beyond the folding chairs and filling the beer garden.

Seattle and beyond

Down the broad staircase in the Alki Room, Indian stand-up comic Hari Kondabolu, who moved to Seattle from New York a year ago, eviscerated Western hypocrisy with a verbal razor that had overtones of Lenny Bruce.

On immigration: "For a country that keeps telling everyone, 'We're number one,' why are Americans so surprised when everyone keeps showing up?"

The marvelous Seattle hand drummer, Tor Dietrichson, and his smokin' band, Mambo Cadillac, got everyone up doing the cha-cha-cha at the Bumbrella Stage. Even longtime stage manager Anthony Cordova couldn't resist a few steps.

An even bigger crowd pressed forward for Gokh-Bi System, from Senegal, which combined traditional music from home with hard-hitting, mic-waving hip-hop flows.

Eat, drink and dance

On the literary stage, dance and philosophy converged during a discussion among Pacific Northwest Ballet artistic director Peter Boal, Spectrum Dance Theater artistic director Donald Byrd and choreographer Zoe Scofield. The three dance experts talked all over the dance world — from the accessibility of dance to the best way to preserve and pass down choreographed pieces. Of its relationship to everyday life, Scofield said: "I think art is completely necessary with all of life, and it should always be up there with eating, drinking and sleeping."

Hip-hop Beatles tunes

Back on the Bumbrella Stage, Common Market's version of "Come Together" was more than a modern cover. With reworked lyrics like "We got war and war and war and peace / knowing one day justice will be served to the police," MC RA Scion's clear, dynamic voice, and the DJ's hot but not overpowering beats, this hip-hop take on the Beatles classic was — dare we say? — better than the original.

Common Market is one of the top reasons to be a hip-hop fan in the 206 right now.

Summer's last blast

Though some schools start before Labor Day, for a gaggle of high-school girls from Garfield, Blanchet, Holy Names and Seattle Prep, Bumbershoot is still the last big blast of summer.

After listing all the bands they'd come to see (Kanye West, Blue Scholars), and not forgetting to mention they'd also come to see boys, Summer Stephens, 14, from Garfield, summed up Sunday nicely.

"I come for the smiles," she said.

Late Saturday night

Choreographer Victor Quijada began as a break dancer and later performed with major ballet companies. Now with his Rubberbandance Group, he's eager to meld both idioms.

Based in Montreal, the company (which performed Saturday and Sunday at Bagley Wright) showed off its gymnastic vigor in "Elastic Perspectives," which featured plenty of head spins, hand-springs, flips, karate kicks and slo-mo. To music ranging from Vivaldi to rap, the fearless dancers were limber crowd-pleasers. But Quijada's movement palette at this stage seems quite limited, too reliant on unison work and athletic bravado.

Still, this is a promising young choreographer on the move. Seattle can see what Quijada is up to next when his new piece, commissioned by the Pacific Northwest Ballet, debuts here in November.

Seattle Times staff reporters Misha Berson, Judy Chia Hui Hsu and Patrick MacDonald, and freelancer Rachel Devitt contributed to this article.