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What live music are you going to see tonight?


mikeweil

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A VERY busy weekend. Went to the hellishly overcrowded Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival yesterday and today. Saw Jerry Douglas (w/Viktor Krauss & Omar Hakim), Patty Griffin, Jon Langford & Skull Orchard, Hot Tuna, Carolyn Wonderland. Wanted to see a lot of other stuff (Richard Thompson, Dave Alvin, Kinky Friedman, Rosanne Cash, etc.), but it's become impossible to navigate the crowds - and no fun. Too bad that it's become too successful for its own good.

Went to a charity event with Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe doing each other's tunes last night. Very entertaining. If you want to read more, Joel Selvin breaks it down.

Tomorrow night - Henry Threadgill & Zooid, part of the SF Jazz Fall Season.

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Last weekend was particularly musically fulfilling.

On Saturday, saw TRIO X, with McPhee, Duval, and Rosen. A very substantial concert, with two 45 minutes sets around a short break. Highlights were tributes to Bill Dixon and Fred Anderson. The group was really "on."

On Sunday ( a tough day for me to go out, as it usually leads to bleary-eyed Mondays), caught the NU Band with Roy Campbell, Mark Whitecage, Joe Fonda, Lou Grassi. Excellent long set; these guys clearly like to play together. Campbell is the most incendiary member of the outfit. Worth seeing.

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The Earshot Jazz Festival begins tonight in Seattle. The first show I plan to see is the Robert Glasper Trio this Sunday night. Over the next few weeks, I also hope to see the Lina Allemano Four, David Haney and Julian Priester, James Carter / John Medeski / Adam Rogers, Darius Jones, Scott Amendola Trio, Steve Lehman Octet, Wayne Horvitz and Soren Kjaergaard, Michael Blake's Lucky Thompson Project, and the Jack Wright / Gust Burns Large Ensemble. And those are only some of the good shows....

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Guest Bill Barton

The Kora Band at Tula's Friday night was superb. Three sets of edgy, adventurous, cross-cultural music that grooves like a m~f too. First time I'd ever seen a calabash on the stage at Tula's, that's for sure! They're well-worth checking out in performance and the new CD on OA2, Cascades, is a must-hear.

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Guest Bill Barton

Chicago Underground Duo at EMP, Saturday, October 16th, Earshot Jazz Festival-Seattle

It took awhile before they warmed up, but when they did, wow. The dynamic range, variety of textures, and moods ranging from contemplative to Fire Music were potent. I've heard a lot of the great drummers live in my time, and Chad Taylor ranks up there with the best of them. The way he combines trap-set with vibes is unique, and his thumb piano playing this night was brilliant. Rob Mazurek on cornet, wooden flute, voice and electronics is a walking repository of jazz brass history, an amazing player. He did some stuff with mutes that I've never heard before and there was an amazing segment where he was playing his horn like a didgeridoo, not touching the valves, playing a cowbell with a mallet simultaneously. Some of the music swung like crazy, some floated like an ephemeral cloud, some grooved with a hip-hoppish snap, some was abstract and pulse-less, some roared like a jet taking off, and it all fit together like an elaborate Chinese puzzle.

Initially, the contrast with the preceding night's sets by The Kora Band at Tula's struck me. Friday was full of smiles and overt joy. At first this music seemed so serious to my ears and eyes. Every musician has a different way to reach "The Zone," that's for sure. And these guys were locked in together in a way that obviously took some intense concentration. Toward the end of the set a bit of lightness surfaced, and it hovered around the new music that they'd apparently never played in performance before.

The ancestors were amongst us, and echoes of Louis and Baby Dodds, Diz and Max, Max and Brownie, Charles "Bobo" Shaw and Lester, Lester and Kahiil El'Zabar, Don Cherry and Edward Blackwell, "Red" Allen and Krupa, Bill Dixon and Lawrence Cook all made appearances. It's a continuum, boys and girls. It ain't linear, it's cyclical.

Kudos to John Gilbreath and Earshot Jazz for bringing this performance to Seattle.

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Saw the first concert in a complete Shostakovich String Quartet cycle by the Pacifica Quartet here in Chicago. Next year they will take this to NYC and London, so I guess Chicago is the out-of-town try-outs. :mellow: Well, that's ok. They were terrific, and I bet the tickets here cost half of what they will next year. I was a little tired and faded out a bit a couple of times, but really enjoyed Quartet 2 and the last few bars of Quartet 3. While I doubt Shostakovich would have known Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time at the time he composed Quartet 3, the effect is similar. There is often something about hearing a piece live that brings just that extra bit of attention compared to listening on CD. I don't recall being that moved by String Quartet 2 before, though I will listen tomorrow to a couple of versions. The Pacifica Quartet said that they would be recording their own cycle, and I might pick it up, depending on pricing. In any case, I'm really looking forward to the rest of the concerts.

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