Robert Glasper playing at Tula’s.

Share on Facebook

Tweet

I photographed Jason Moran in 2006 during the Earshot Jazz Festival and this was the image used on the poster to promote the 2007 Festival when he returned to play again with his group Bandwagon.

Earshot Jazz described him like this:
Now one of the most prominent talents in jazz, the pianist Jason Moran draws top-notch commissions, infuses his compositions
with theatrical charisma, and carries off a memorable performance in Seattle every time.
Earlier this year, Blue Note released Moran’s Artist in Residence. Like so much of Moran’s growing canon, the album capitalizes expertly on his fascination with pre-recorded materials, his mind for composition, and his technical bravado at the piano. It compiles a series of commissioned
works – MILESTONE, for Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center; The Shape, the Scent, the Feel of Things, for the Dia Art Foundation; and RAIN, which premiered at Rose Hall (Jazz at Lincoln Center) and was written for Bandwagon, Moran’s staple trio with bassist Taurus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits.
In 2003, Bandwagon released its self-titled live album. Recorded at the Village Vanguard and including interpretations of such surprising songs as hip-hop godfather
Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” and Brahms’s “Intermezzo, Op. 118, No. 2,” the release helped Moran’s already growing profile swell even further.
A native of Houston, TX, the 32-year-old Moran has played with contemporary talents like Cassandra Wilson, Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, Stefan Harris, and Sam Rivers, but his star continues to rise thanks primarily to the propulsion of his work as a bandleader and composer. In this capacity Moran also remains a voracious
re-interpreter, finding deep wells of inspiration in stride maestro James P. Johnson, Icelandic dynamo Björk, and 20th-century classical giants Prokofiev and Ravel.
Fittingly, this unpredictable innovator spurs surprising accolades. In 2005, for example, he was awarded Playboy Magazine’s
first “Jazz Artist of the Year” nod. But with Jason Moran, the facts simply can’t encapsulate the energy fuelling the prolific fount of music within the man. Luckily, the Triple Door offers an ideal setting in which to hear this creative maelstrom before his inevitable place in the jazz pantheon assures an end to such intimate performances.

Click here for the complete schedule for the 2008 Earshot Jazz Festival:

Thomas is another of my favorite local musicians. Here he is playing at Tula’s during the 2005 Earshot Jazz festival.

Seattle’s 20th annual Earshot Jazz Festival presents more than 50 one-of-a-kind events in concert halls, clubs, and community centers all around the city beginning October 18th and continuing through November 9th.

Known for “adventurous, spot-on programming” (Jazz Times) and praised as “one of the best festivals in America” (Seattle Times) the Earshot Jazz Festival brings important artists from around the world into creative collaboration with area audiences and Seattle’s finest jazz musicians. It celebrates Seattle’s place in the world of jazz — from our award-winning high-school jazz programs to our renowned resident jazz masters — in a world-class festival setting that features many of today’s most important artists.
Some of the highlights planned for this 20th Earshot
Festival include:

NEA Jazz Master James Moody with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra in a 4-day residency that includes oral history interviews, educational programs, and two concerts
Pioneering avant-garde pianist and NEA Jazz Master Cecil Taylor in a solo concert at Seattle’s Town Hall
Saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and hisquartet at the Triple Door
Pianist Marilyn Crispell in concert at the Chapel Performance Space
Vocalist Simone, daughter of Nina Simone, in concert in Bothell
A collaboration with the Langston Hughes Cultural center that includes concerts by violinist Billy Bang and Seattle jazz legends Julian Priester and Hadley Caliman.
A pre-election concert at Town Hall by bassist Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra featuring pianist/arranger Carla Bley.
A 20-year retrospective of internationally-known Seattle resident Wayne Horvitz featuring his groups, The President, New York Composer’s Orchestra West, Pigpen, and Zony Mashwith Horns
Seattle’s award-winning Garfield and Roosevelt High School jazz bands in main stage concerts with guests such as Wycliffe Gordon.
Eastern European prodigy Eldar with veteran singer Nancy King
Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii with Rova’s Larry Ochs
Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra accompaniment to three Laurel and Hardy films
And many, many more.

Photograph by Seattle Photographer and Seattle photojournalist Daniel Sheehan. Daniel specializes in portraits and photojournalism for publications and corporations. At night he shoots jazz musicians on assignment for Earshot Jazz. Please respect his work and ask for permission to use any pictures.

I always enjoy listening to Marc Seales, but this performance during the Earshot Jazz Festival in 2005 was really special. He was playing at Tula’s which is a intimate setting for great music.

Seattle’s 20th annual Earshot Jazz Festival presents more than 50 one-of-a-kind events in concert halls, clubs, and community centers all around the city beginning October 18th and continuing through November 9th.

Known for “adventurous, spot-on programming” (Jazz Times) and praised as “one of the best festivals in America” (Seattle Times) the Earshot Jazz Festival brings important artists from around the world into creative collaboration with area audiences and Seattle’s finest jazz musicians. It celebrates Seattle’s place in the world of jazz — from our award-winning high-school jazz programs to our renowned resident jazz masters — in a world-class festival setting that features many of today’s most important artists.
Some of the highlights planned for this 20th Earshot
Festival include:

NEA Jazz Master James Moody with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra in a 4-day residency that includes oral history interviews, educational programs, and two concerts
Pioneering avant-garde pianist and NEA Jazz Master Cecil Taylor in a solo concert at Seattle’s Town Hall
Saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and hisquartet at the Triple Door
Pianist Marilyn Crispell in concert at the Chapel Performance Space
Vocalist Simone, daughter of Nina Simone, in concert in Bothell
A collaboration with the Langston Hughes Cultural center that includes concerts by violinist Billy Bang and Seattle jazz legends Julian Priester and Hadley Caliman.
A pre-election concert at Town Hall by bassist Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra featuring pianist/arranger Carla Bley.
A 20-year retrospective of internationally-known Seattle resident Wayne Horvitz featuring his groups, The President, New York Composer’s Orchestra West, Pigpen, and Zony Mashwith Horns
Seattle’s award-winning Garfield and Roosevelt High School jazz bands in main stage concerts with guests such as Wycliffe Gordon.
Eastern European prodigy Eldar with veteran singer Nancy King
Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii with Rova’s Larry Ochs
Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra accompaniment to three Laurel and Hardy films
And many, many more.

Click here for the complete schedule:

Photograph by Seattle Editorial Photographer and Seattle photojournalist Daniel Sheehan. Daniel specializes in portraits and photojournalism for publications and corporations. At night he shoots jazz musicians on assignment for Earshot Jazz. Please respect his work and ask for permission to use any pictures.

Daniel is also a Seattle wedding photographer. He does wedding photography  in an artistic, editorial fashion with classic photojournalistic style. He photographs weddings with a subtle, unobtrusive, story-telling approach and creates artistic documentary wedding photojournalism.