COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2014 For festivalgoers, the Columbus Jazz & Rib Fest may begin with the first bite of barbecue or the first note from the stage.<\/p>\n
For the people responsible for both, the work begins much earlier.<\/p>\n
Paul Myers and his team started Thursday by turning a trailer into a fully functioning barbecue stand for Austin\u2019s Texas Lightning Barbecue.<\/p>\n
Fresh off another festival in Wisconsin, the crew reloaded its equipment, drove to Columbus and began the setup process again.<\/p>\n
Hours of preparation come before the meat goes on the smoker overnight. Myers, the barbecue business\u2019s manager, said he pays close attention to how every part of the stand looks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think people eat with their eyes first,\u201d Myers said. \u201cSo making sure everything looks good. I\u2019m a little, little anal about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Myers\u2019 team purchased the business in 2014 and continued using its original Texas Panhandle rubs, sauces and recipes.<\/p>\n
Austin\u2019s Texas Lightning Barbecue is one of 17 barbecue vendors featured at this year\u2019s Jazz & Rib Fest.<\/p>\n
As vendors built their stands around him, Seth Alexander was already filling the festival grounds with music.<\/p>\n
Alexander, the leader of Largemouth Brass Band, is among the artists scheduled to perform during the festival.<\/p>\n
His connection to music began early. By the time he was a teenager, Alexander had performed in jazz band, marching band and the Columbus Youth Symphony.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it just felt like the most obvious choice,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cAnd felt like I was going in the family business of drumming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Largemouth Brass Band has as much as three hours of music available for its performances. For the Jazz & Rib Fest, the group narrowed that material to an approximately one-hour set while leaving room to improvise.<\/p>\n
Alexander said that flexibility can make rehearsing more complicated.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd rehearsals when you\u2019re doing that are really hard because you can\u2019t plan that, like, golden kind of moment in the setlist every single time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The festival draws an estimated crowd of more than 200,000 people each year.<\/p>\n
Alexander hopes the band gets that crowd moving. Myers hopes attendees leave talking about the food.<\/p>\n
\u201cWow, this is the best rib I\u2019ve ever had,\u201d Myers said, describing the reaction he wants to hear.<\/p>\n
Before the music begins and anyone gets the chance to taste those ribs, however, the crews still have signs to hang, equipment to arrange and hours of preparation ahead of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2014 For festivalgoers, the Columbus Jazz & Rib Fest may begin with the first bite of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[135711,9980,2160,132,134,133,35732,1570,2777,223,1688,78948,135712,2053,835],"class_list":["post-384991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-aliah-keller","tag-app-arts-entertainment","tag-app-top-stories","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-columbus","tag-ctv","tag-entertainment","tag-news","tag-ohio","tag-ohio-columbus-top-stories","tag-ohio-what-you-need-to-know","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}