The province's favourite musical festival is now an adult and growing more and more with each passing year.

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Ben Conoley

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Now entering its 18th year, Fredericton's Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival is no longer a small member of the country's festival circuit. Drawing celebrated acts from not only the jazz and blues scene, but also contemporary rock and folk, Harvest offers acts for those with interests in a wide range of musical genres.

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The 2008 edition of the festival running from September 9-14 sees the event continuing to draw some premium acts from around the world. This year, fans will be able to catch powerhouse acts such as Buddy Guy, The Derek Trucks Band, Charlie Hunter and Bloc Party. However, while the big acts are often the talk of the town in the weeks leading up to the festival, it's just as likely that people will be heading home with local talent on their minds as it is the larger acts.

Bands and musicians from Atlantic Canada benefit tremendously from the opportunity to play Harvest's stages. The festival draws thousands of music fans to the city as well as bringing in industry representatives looking for bands to sign.

Atlantic bands who have used Harvest as their stomping grounds in the past include the celebrated Hot Toddy Trio, who have grown tremendously since playing some of their early shows at the festival. New Brunswick guitar hero JP LeBlanc turned heads when he played the festival as a teenager. Now 23 and better at the guitar than ever, he will be returning to the Harvest stage once again. Nineteen-year-old Keith Hallett of Fredericton will be playing the festival this year after wowing the crowd with his appearance playing alongside blues legend Watermelon Slim last year.

Kyle Cunjak has played in a number of Fredericton bands over the years. Lately he's been providing bass lines for Share, who released Pedestrian in 2007. He says the festival has been instrumental in his musical career thus far.

"My first bar gig was at Harvest and the fact that it's in my hometown both make me feel like really at home during that week," he says. "That, combined with the superb organization and musician treatment make it my favourite time of the year." He stresses that the all-ages shows that take place during Harvest are critical to the city's all ages music scene.

"I think playing the Barracks shows to large all-ages audiences, pretty much our only opportunity to showcase for the younger crowd since the city shut down the Elks Club shows (RIP), definitely helps create buzz around the high school and university kids." Graeme Walker is a veteran of the province's music scene. As the bass player for Grand Theft Bus, Walker has played Harvest.

"Our experience has been incredible. We've played many festivals over the years with this band and Harvest is easily among the top in terms of organization and how they treat artists. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to take in as much of the festival as I'd like as a fan because we'd typically play the event and leave for another show somewhere. The shows I've seen have been stellar and there are some things this year that look incredible.

"Harvest does a great job exploiting it's home-grown talent. The whole rising stars event is a great way for new artists to gain exposure. You can look at people like Ross Neilsen and Keith Hallett as great examples. A band like ours as well - we've been exposed to large numbers of people that typically wouldn't attend a Grand Theft Bus show. It's great exposure and as a local artist I'm appreciative of the support this festival has given us." Walker says Harvest does a great job of balancing the spotlight between home-grown talent and acts from out of town.

"There's a great balance of local and talent from outside the region. Many of my friends are playing multiple shows in the city during the week of Harvest. These are people that make a living by playing music. Harvest is obviously receptive of this as they're providing a stage for these artists to play on, and on the busiest musical weekend of the year in this city. It's nice to see that the festival isn't going after acts solely to sell tickets as well. Obviously you need your headliners to sell the shows, but there are several acts that look very obscure and come from various parts of the world - it should be a very interesting week musically."

Cunjak agrees. "There always seems to be a 50/50 split between East Coast musicians and national/international talent. There's always a good mix of familiar faces, must-see acts and unknown surprises." Dave Seabrook, Harvest's communications director, says that the focus on local talent has always been important to festival organizers.

"From the very beginning, one of the essential elements of the festival, right from 1991 was to showcase local and regional talent. For our first year we only showcased local talent. Over 35 per cent of the festival remains local and regional." Seabrook says the festival has developed a number of ways to ensure that local and regional bands and musicians benefit from Harvest.

"We want to be a part of the development process of local artists. We want to provide them showcase opportunities. It helps build audiences both locally and helps bands in terms of exposure to agents or management, or media that are visiting. Secondly, the way we program the festival. We have the rising star showcase that's a launching pad and we have the festival itself and its main stages. We want to ensure that Harvest is completely unique. By having this significant commitment to local artists, which I dare say is equal to or better than any festival in Canada, it's unlike any festival in the world. You're going to see some of the marquee acts, but you are also going to see locals." The third way Harvest aims to support local talent is through development programs.

"We have a music in the schools program that puts Harvest artists into the schools and exposes kids to music and hopefully inspires them to become appreciators of music and musicians," Seabrook says. "We have a grant program, music teachers apply to our program and we put money into schools for guitars, drums, sheet music, whatever that may be."

Harvest promises a full slate of local talent this year. In addition to the acts previously mentioned, look for shows from David Myles, Chillin' Room, Two Hours Traffic, Hey Rosetta!, Tom Fun Orchestra, Old Man Luedecke and many more.

For more information, the full schedule and ways to purchase tickets, visit harvestjazzandblues.com.