The future of Jazz was a recurring theme at this year’s Atlanta Jazz Festival Weekend Concert Series, held at Piedmont Park in Atlanta’s Midtown district. Instead of groups featuring Atlanta’s best jazz players, the early main stage performances featured high school and middle school jazz ensembles, while some of the area’s up and coming musicians played on a side stage at the other end of the park before the later main stage performances by the “name” jazz groups.

Saturday I arrived at Piedmont Park in time to see veteran tenor saxophonist Benny Golson backed by a young rhythm section playing some of his best known compositions, but with a more laid back approach than usual. The same rhythm section burned behind the United Trombone Summit, a made-for-the-festival group consisting of Delfeayo Marsalis, Robin Eubanks, Steve Turre, a young trombonist from Savannah named Andre, but no Curtis Fuller. No reason was given for his absence.

The evening’s top performance belonged to vocalist Carmen Lundy and the New Songbook Artists. Lundy was joined by established jazz heavyweights Turre, alto saxophonist Bobby Watson, her brother, bassist Curtis Lundy, plus a dynamic young drummer in Jason Brown, for a hard hitting set of original music from her new self-produced CD that ranks among the best performances I have ever seen at the AJF. She is a powerful performer and the equal of any musician she shares the bandstand with.

Although he looked thinner than the last time I saw him, McCoy Tyner hasn’t lost much of his power as he, super bassist Charnett Moffett and drummer Eric Kamau Gravatt, closed the evening playing mostly standards.