This is the third of four posts on this year's Jazz on the Mountain festival.

Incapable of being anti-climactic, Scott Robinson stole the jazzfest on Sunday morning. He played mostly with Martin and Matt, but Frank and Fred also joined in.

He was funny, telling stories about his dad. He was dramatic, playing a harrowing theme from his album inspired by pulp hero Doc Savage. He played a growling bass sax and more of his heartful tenor sax. He remembered playing with Chet Baker and played "But Not for Me" on a cornet.

Scott's finale featured a clarinet-like Hungarian instrument called the tarogato. He inherited the brown-ish horn, somewhat chubbier than a clarinet, from Joe Muranyi, clarinetist with Louis Armstrong. He remembered his friend with "The Old Miss Blues." Scott's concert was a favorite of the Mohonk multitude, and he sold more CD's than any artist ever at the jazzfest.

I've always wanted Fred Hersch to play what I think of as the "Horowitz slot" on a Sunday afternoon. He played several of his most evocative pieces. "Whirl" -- which it does. "Stuttering" -- which bounces like a ball down stairs. "At the Close of the Day" from his setting of Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."

Anat Cohen joined in a lively and lovely duet.
 Anat's album called "Claroscuro" and Matt's album called "An Attitude for Gratitude" were my favorite albums last year.

Matt's Arts and Crafts group featured Mike Rodriguez on trumpet, Gary Versace on piano and organ -- "He forgot the accordion," said a teasing Matt -- and Martin Wind playing on Sunday evening.

Goofy and swinging, they played a musical kaleidoscope. Gary was especially edgy, sometimes with one hand on the piano and the other playing an organ that sounded like a sci-fi soundtrack. Martin's "Cruise Blues" was especially lyrical.

Matt's "Bubbles" was inspired by (and included him touchingly speaking) a poem of Carl Sandburg. And along with a call for the audience to join in Matt's mass-sway, Anat, Scott, and Joe joined Arts & Crafts for a fireworks finale of Duke's "Blue Pepper."

...Michael Bourne

Up next: Monday highlights with Parlor Games and the Mohonk Nuclei

This is the second of four posts on this year's Jazz on the Mountain festival.

Mohonk this year wanted a show for kids. Families always have come for the weekend, but I was amazed by so many kids in the parlor on Saturday morning: 2-year-olds running everywhere with moms and dads in pursuit, 4-10-year-olds singing along with Amy Cervini.

She was (with a runner and a newborn of her own) charming, singing sweetly, telling the kids about jazz, getting the kids to play little tambourines, getting the kids (of all ages) to sing along.

Joe Locke became a JOTM favorite 5-6 years ago when he played vibes so electrifyingly that he got the first ever standing ovation on a Saturday afternoon.

He's been the most requested comeback artist ever since, and this year came back (again electrifyingly, again in the Saturday afternoon "Joe Locke slot") for duets with pianist Frank Kimbrough -- whose solo of "Gone with the Wind" was hauntingly surreal.

John Scofield enjoyed playing last year's JOTM so much that he was game to return.

He especially wanted to play with Anat Cohen, and just about everyone at the Mountain House joined in the Saturday evening "ScoJam" -- playing to the biggest crowd ever in the parlor and the balcony above.

I requested a guitar solo, and he played a melancholy country song of George Jones, "The Girl I Used to Know." I'd forgotten that I'd requested (in an e-mail months ago) that he play a duet with Matt, and they whipped up a wild "St Thomas."

What's most remarkable to me is that some of the best music every jazzfest just...happens. John called up Joe Locke and, together with the house band, they played an impromptu frenzied "Afro-Blue."

Even with a painful finger, Fred played with ecstatic abandon, as if (he said) channeling Jaki Byard. I've heard so much (often great) music through the years that I'm rarely surprised, but at Mohonk I'm always surprised, as I was when Sco and Scott Robinson (on tenor sax) played an exquisite duet of "Old Folks."

Sco called everyone out, including trumpeter Mike Rodriguez from the audience, for a finale of "C-Jam Blues." After everyone played the first line, John improvised a second line, and as everyone jumped in for solos, Anat created riffs for the band to jam along.

Many folks who've been to Mohonk year after year said to me that the "ScoJam" was the best concert ever at Mohonk.

...Michael Bourne

Up next: Sunday highlights with more from Scott, Anat, Fred and Matt's Arts and Crafts!