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By admin, October 27, 2010 4:22 pm

So the Earshot Jazz Festival is about halfway over.  The Seattle Times talked about it a bit , as did Lucas Gillan of Accujazz and Jason Parker from One Working Musician.

As with every year, I am impressed with the diverse schedule of music and film, and several of the musicians in particular have been hype-worthy for me, in particular Mark Taylor, Steve Lehman, Dafnis Prieto and Agogic, and the Brian Blade Fellowship, but there really is something for everyone.

There’s some talk that the turn-out hasn’t been great for some shows,  but that seems to me to be par for the course at Earshot, and an understandable side effect of a festival that can book Robert Glasper, Charlie Musselwhite, and Steve Lehman in the same festival. 

In addition, you’ve got multiple shows going on at the same time sometimes, so the audiences are split, not to mention that at 20-25 bucks a pop folks like me are going to pick and choose what they can afford to go to.

 I can specifically remember going to festival events in the past that were on both sides of the attendance spectrum (Manuel Valera and Kris Davis are two concerts where I remember thinking there should be way more people there, while Ravi Coltrane’s first appearance at the festival I nearly didn’t get into), and I’ve talked with some musician friends of mine that know for a fact some acts are booked for the festival with full knowledge that they might not necessarily bring an incredible amount of listeners, but the music is bad-ass, so Earshot does it anyway.  I really admire that. 

I’m also really happy that Earshot continues to feature local groups as well as out-of-town groups.  Hardcoretet was fortunate enough to have our cd release party as part of the Festival last year, and who knows?  Maybe we will have the chance again, but until then there are plenty of top-notch Seattle musicians on the schedule, all of them well worth supporting (Mark Taylor and the Teaching both come to mind). 

A coworker took his family to see the Darius Jones Trio on Saturday.  He didn’t know Jones’ music, he just knew that Earshot was going on and wanted to see at least one concert and take his kids too.  I was able to forward him this post from Destination:  OUT on the trio’s New York appearance and their most recent release.  He soon realized Darius and company was a little outside of his comfort zone, but enjoyed the show anyway and was glad he went.  I think it’s safe to say he never would have gone to see, much less heard of, the Darius Jones trio if not for the Earshot Festival, which is as strong a piece of testimony as I can think of for the value of the Festival (not that I ever thought its value was in question).

What does Earshot mean for local musicians the rest of the year?  Not much, in my opinion.  The festival is a great platform to have in the moment, but once that time is over, it doesn’t really lead to much else, and although the Earshot organization does have some concert series at other parts of the year, they don’t seem to me to do much more in terms of a band’s promotion than a gig that the band went out and booked itself would.  That said, I always look forward to Fall in Seattle, I check out the artists list as soon as its announced, and I hope Earshot continues for a long, long time.

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By admin, June 18, 2010 8:58 am

I’m back with another double post that I’ve been wanting to do for a while, a recount of and some thoughts about Memorial Day Weekend. 

I was very excited for this weekend for several reasons.  There would be great camping with some of my favorite people, a full day’s worth of music that was largely new to me, and then the IO Awards at Benaroya Hall to cap it all off.  First, Sasquatch.

When my sister Emily first suggested a bunch of us buy Saturday Sasquatch tickets, I probably was familiar with 3 or 4 of the bands out of the 12 hours of music that would be happening that day.  Part of the great birthday present my girlfriend Brittany got me was a package of burned cds of almost all the bands playing at Sasquatch when we would be there, a primer of sorts so I knew what to expect, and listening to these just got me more pumped.  As I’ve said here before, I pretty much come from a jazz background, and haven’t listened to very much of anything else, although my horizons have definitely expanded in recent years, and this was an opportunity to open my ears even more.

Saturday at the Gorge did not disappoint.  Artists like Mumford and Sons, Laura Marling, Miike Snow, Broken Social Scene, Vampire Weekend, the National, and Brother Ali all were top notch, and obviously seeing all of them at the Gorge in beautiful weather was an amazing experience (camping was incredible too, but I’ll stick to the music here).  From noon to midnight, I can’t remember a single act that I was honestly disappointed with, and they all had their own style and sound, not to mention incredible amounts of stage energy.  I was really impressed with all the bands’ ability to put on an awesome show and really get into it, often with little or no pageantry or flash.  Everyone seriously rocked their sets, but there was nothing lost in the execution of the music, and these are things I think I could think about more often when I play.

Monday night was the first ever Inside Out Awards.  All in all, it was an immensely impressive event that Lucid’s David Pierre-Louis pulled off, and it was fun, at least for a small part of the night, for Brittany and I to feel a little fancy walking around the Benaroya Hall lobby.  Hardcoretet didn’t win, but there was even some fun in that; after hanging out and joking around with our friends in Gravity, who beat us out for the mixed-genre album award, a tongue-in-cheek feud was born, and I hope it goes for a while.  You win this round, Gravity, but next time!

Most importantly, I hope that this first time around for the Inside Out Awards was an experience that can both be improved on as an event as well as a catalyst for increased musical activity in Seattle.  It definitely gave a snapshot of the incredible musical diversity here, and if listeners continue to seek out new venues, new bands, new artists, and new music, the scene will benefit.  I think it’s important to recognize that one of the possible negative side effects of emphasizing any particular community, whether it’s jazz, rock, sculpture, poetry, or anything else, is that the circle tightens, and even though the bonds inside that community get stronger, it begins to isolate itself.  That being said, the Inside Out Awards event was a fun celebration of what we have going on here in Seattle, and I for one was energized to look ahead to the future!

So that was Memorial Day Weekend.  Stay tuned for another post soon about the Polyrhythmics, the band I’m in that recently took an Oregon mini-tour of our own, and come celebrate Solstice this Saturday the 19th at 7:30 at Cafe Solstice(!) with Dead Zerious featuring Andrew Swanson, IO award winner and subject of this week’s Better Know a Badass on www.hardcoretetmusic.com.

Art

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By admin, August 9, 2009 3:38 pm

I told myself I would wait to put posts up until my site was fully operational, but this is close enough, and if any of you out there have suggestions on how to make it cooler, let me know!

I also am not completely sure what I’m going to post about, or how often I’ll get on here; I think that’s a question that will probably take care of itself. I do know that I’d like most, if not all, of the content to be music-related, and ideally focus on Seattle music in particular. I’ve found that every musician I talk to about the scene has pretty clear ideas and opinions on the state of live music in this city, but tend to keep them to themselves unless they are asked about it, in which case the floodgates open! I’ve been exactly the same way, so hopefully this blog will change that. Stay tuned…