It was a cool July night in the City of Grit. My fedora pulled down low over my eyes, I peered out through a haze of cigarette smoke as I slunk down South Tacoma Way. Maybe that's why at first I didn't see the hep cat in the zoot suit. He was layin' back deep in the shadows and burnin' a cancer stick of his own. "What's the haps, brotha man?" I asked, meanin' to breeze past. "You lookin' sharp."

"You see that?" he asked, pointing a long dark finger at an open space near Stonegate Pizza. "I'm tellin' you, they's some crazy bidiness 'bout to go down on this block, and that's the stone truth. This scene gon' be 18-karat come this weekend."

"This block here?" I repeated. "Lay it on me, Jack."

"This here where they puttin' together the Jazz and Blues Festival this year, son. That ain't no applesauce."

Read Christian Carvajal's interview with the mysterious hep cat about the Tacoma Jazz and Blues Festival in the Music and Culture section.

TACOMA JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL, 1 p.m. Saturday, July 26, S. Tacoma Way between South 54th and South 56th, Tacoma, $20-$25, 253.951.8235