By DOROTHY HARTZ

“All that jazz” continues in the county this week with the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance’s fourth and final JazzFest concert, featuring the cross-cultural magic of Brasil & Co. Quartet. It happens on Saturday at the Tusten Theater. Next week, on June 3, jazzman and Monticello resident Hugh Brodie brings his new band to the Sullivan County Museum in Hurleyville to complement the Catskill Art Society’s receptions for two new exhibits.

Opening in the Beck Gallery will be Shelley Rusten’s “Italian Sketches.” Rustin’s photographic impressions of the vibrant color for which Italy is celebrated is a departure from his usual black and white work, which in 1993 was accepted to the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Rustin has exhibited, published and taught for over 35 years. Twenty-one local artists participate in “The Human Presence,” a group show of the Delaware-Hudson Photographers Society opening in the Auditorium on the same date. This is the second group show by the Society, which is also sponsoring a Photography Exposition on June 30. The Expo will feature booths and exhibits, a slide lecture and a viewing. Call 845/436-4227 for details of these and other museum events.

A rumination: photography is a democratic art form. Although few approach artistry or venture into the technological crucible awaiting today’s photographer, anyone with an instamatic and a soul can play. I offer an excerpt from John Marchese’s “Renovations:”

“For years, there was just one picture I kept of my father. It was taken at a party in the seventies, while I was away at college, and mailed to me by the shutterbug, my mother. She has an idiosyncratic way of framing a photograph. I have a whole box of snapshots she has sent me over the years which I could label ‘foreheads and limbs of relatives.’ This particular photo of my father cuts off his bulging belly but leaves his upper body intact. He is wearing a pith helmet that he picked up while in the navy in the South Pacific. The camera lens has caught his round face at a slight angleand, though he rarely drinks, he looks both bemused and a little tipsy. On the back of the picture my mother has written ‘The Hunter.’ But there is such a soft compliance in my father’s tentative grin, so little aggression, that he seems more like prey.”

Marchese’s relationship with his father as they work side by side, and sometimes even together, remodeling Marchese’s Narrowsburg home is both the subject of the recently released “Renovations” and the object of Marchese’s inner renovation as well. The work is touching and funny, with language as well-tooled as a country hardware store and as fast-dancing as the Delaware. Marchese will be reading upstairs at the Delaware Arts Center on Friday evening, June 8. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and Philadelphia magazine, where he’s won national recognition for feature and special interest writing.

Jazz, photography and good summer reading. I can’t speak for all over, but June is busting out here.

Call the DVAA for reservations or information at 845/252-7576, or visit www.artsalliancesite.org.