CT Weekend Events: Jazz, Art, Clowns & Tractor Pulls

CONNECTICUT — From hi-brow art exhibitions to hi-test tractor pulls, Connecticut offers something for just about every taste this weekend.

The Litchfield Jazz Festival kicks off Friday and runs through the weekend at the Tisch Auditorium in the state-of-the-art Thomas Perakos Performing Arts Center in Washington. Ever since the fest launched a quarter-century ago with Diana Krall in the lineup, reviewers have heaped praise on the organizers’ gets. This year, appearances by Amina Figarova Sextet and the Bill Charlap Trio should only burnish that legacy brighter. Tickets are available online here.

The fun will be about as good and old-fashioned as it gets at the 64th Annual Lebanon Country Fair this weekend. Goats, sheep, rabbits, poultry and cattle will all get their moment in the summer sun, alongside an interspecies battle for barnyard bragging rights, the Oxen vs. Horse Pull. Warranties will be voided left and right as otherwise study machinery will be strained to the breaking point in truck pulls, antique tractor pulls, and lawnmower races. A magic show, balloon animals, fair food and Bella the Clown will pretty much make this event a guaranteed hit with even your youngest country cousins. The fairgrounds will be open Friday, 3-11 p.m., Saturday, 9 a.m.-11 p.m., and Sunday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.

A little ways southward, Old Lyme will be holding its Midsummer Festival on Friday and Saturday, and it’s huge. Party band Locomotion gets the ball rolling with a concert on the Florence Griswold Museum lawn, 7-9 p.m. on Friday. There’s a 5K run, if that’s your thing, starting Saturday morning at 8, followed by an art sale, a classic car show, a dog show, a linen sale, a food truck court, and kids’ activities and art gallery tours throughout the day. The massive undertaking is produced each year by the Old Lyme Arts District, and needs its own map.

In Ridgefield, where the whole damn town is an arts district, Summerfest will take over Main Street from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Over 60 craft vendors will join a full complement of carnival games and sidewalk sales, brought to you by the local Chamber of Commerce.

Midsummer is also the end of the season for many exhibits and installations. Notably, this weekend is your last chance to see “PRAXIS: An Exhibition of Clay Sculpture, Collage and Paintings” at City Gallery in New Haven, featuring the work of Roberta Friedman, Joyce Greenfield, Sheila Kaczmarek, and Kathy Kane. Gallery hours are Friday through Sunday, noon to 4 p.m., and admission is free. On Sunday, The Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens will be pulling down “Aalto 2.0,” the Hugh Kepets show “inspired by architectural structures and his environment.” They’re free spirits over at the Gardens, so check their social media for their hours this weekend.

You have until dusk Saturday to catch “Flag Field for Heroes” at the Nathan Hale Homestead in Coventry before that grassroots, inspiring and unabashedly patriotic initiative shutters for the year. Folks have been filling the grassy areas surrounding the home of Connecticut’s most famous Revolutionary with American flags in honor of a military service member, veteran, or hero since the middle of May, and now red, white and blue cover the green everywhere.