Tribute to Jim Knapp
November 14th, 2011
Cornish College and the Seattle jazz community came together on November 2 at the Triple Door to celebrate Jim Knapp, the trumpeter, composer, and band leader who founded the college’s jazz program 40 years ago. Earshot Jazz Festival 20011 presented the Jim Knapp Orchestra, the Cornish big band, and surprise musical guests.
Jim Knapp makes music, mentors musicians and likes laughter. For the past forty years, Knapp fed the Seattle jazz scene with his compositions, improvisations, ensembles and students. And he shows no signs of slowing down. This concert is an opportunity for the community to give back for all of Knapp’s selfless gifts to the Seattle music environment.
All of Knapp’s music expresses his dry wit, experimental outlook, and meticulous craft. As a composition student, one of his early works for the University of Illinois jazz band was titled Summertime. After quoting the first three notes of the Gershwin opera tune, the melody is abandoned for a lush exploration of harmonies and textures hinted at from just that fragment.
Grace Kelly Quintet
November 13th, 2011
Grace Kelly Quintet at Tula’s in the last week of the Earshot Jazz Festival.
Earshot Jazz Festival 2011 presented the 19-year-old jazz wonder, saxophonist/vocalist Grace Kelly who “plays with intelligence, wit, and feeling,” says one of her many fans, Wynton Marsalis.
Just five years ago at the age of 14, Grace Kelly garnered the first of her ASCAP Foundation awards and landed an invitation to perform with the Boston Pops. Kelly met this challenge by writing her first full orchestral arrangement and performing it in Boston’s iconic Symphony Hall. Since then, she has garnered accolades for many of the artists she has grown up revering. She has already performed and recorded with the likes of Dave Brubeck, Phil Woods, Harry Connick Jr., Jamie Cullum, Frank Morgan, Esperanza Spalding, Chris Potter, Cedar Walton, James Cotton and Terri Lynn Carrington, among many others. Perhaps her most intensive connection has been with Lee Konitz, whom Kelly has studied with since age 13.
Lately acclaimed for her recordings of “gospel jazz,” she was joined by Jason Palmer (trumpet), Doug Johnson (piano), Evan Gregor (bass), and Jordan Perlson (drums).
Kate Olson/Gary Prince Duo
November 13th, 2011
Kate Olson/Gary Prince Duo at SEATTLE ASIAN ART MUSEUM Kate Olson, a recent arrival to Seattle and instantly one of its most outstanding saxophonists opened for Robin Holcomb with a set that was both nuanced and highly expressive with Washington DC-based guitarist Gary Prince.
Jerry Granelli Trio
November 2nd, 2011
Jerry Granelli Trio at Tula’s
Earshot Jazz Festival 2011 presented the Jerry Granelli Trio at Tula’s last Sunday night. Drummer Jerry Granelli, whom Jazz Times called “one of those uncategorizable veteran percussionists who’s done it all,” appeared with his longtime trio of Danny Oore (sax) and Simon Fisk (bass/cello). Partway through the second set, Jerry invited vocalist Jay Clayton up to join them. Check out the Earshot Jazz Festival Schedule to see what’s coming up next in this last week of the 2011 Festival lineup.
In Jerry Granelli’s expansive 45-year-career, he’s been at peak commercial success with Mose Allison and Vince Guaraldi – the pianist behind the classic Peanuts music – and deep in the world of improvisation and musical exploration. JazzTimes calls Granelli “one of those uncategorizable veteran percussionists who’s done it all.”
Born in 1940 San Francisco, Granelli recognized his passion in 1948 when he spent a day with Gene Krupa. Hanging out during the 50s in San Francisco nightclubs, like the Blackhawk, The Jazz Workshop and Jimbo’s Bop City, connected him to the hard bop sounds of Miles, Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones, Elvin Jones and Monk. After two years as a pupil of Joe Morello’s, Granelli became a highly sought-after session player, eventually matching up with the Vince Guaraldi Band. From the mid 70s through the 90s, Granelli focused on teaching, bringing his insider knowledge to hundreds of students at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, then the Cornish College of the Arts, the Conservatory in Halifax, and the Hochschule der Kunst in Berlin.
A Canadian citizen since 1999, Granelli spent years in Halifax as a keystone in the jazz community there. Along with Halifax’s Jazz East organization, he founded the Creative Music Workshop, a two-week intensive music program that takes place every summer in conjunction with the Atlantic Jazz Festival.
Internationally acclaimed vocalist, composer and educator Jay Clayton creates work boldly spanning the terrain between jazz and new music. In 1963, she began her career performing standards in New York. Since then, she has performed and recorded throughout the United States, Canada and Europe with leading jazz and new music artists, including Steve Reich, Muhal Richard Abrams, John Cage, Julian Priester, Jane Ira Bloom, Nana Vasconcelos, Stanley Cowell and Bobby McFerrin. She has appeared at major U.S. venues, including Lincoln Center, The Kitchen, Sweet Basil and Jazz Alley, and at European festivals, including North Sea and Montmartre. Her work in the realms of standard and free music led to her development of a highly personal, wordless vocabulary, often enhanced now by her use of electronics.
Clayton has gained worldwide attention not only as a performer but also as a teacher. Her educational book, Sing Your Story: A Practical Guide for Learning and Teaching the Art of Jazz Singing, was published by Advance Music in 2001. She has taught vocal jazz at New York City College, the Banff Center in Canada, the Bud Shank Workshop in Port Townsend, the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and in music schools in Cologne, Berlin and Munich, Germany. She was on the jazz faculty at Cornish College of the Arts for twenty years, through 2001.
Travis Shook Trio
November 1st, 2011
Travis Shook Trio at Tula’s
Earshot Jazz Festival 2011 presented the Travis Shook Trio at Tula’s last Friday and Saturday nights. this was one of my favorite performances of the festival so far. Travis with Matt Jorgensen (drums) and Essiet Essiet (bass) played some really cool sounding jazz from some standards, to Beetles tunes to his own compositions. Travis – a former Seattleite who was Earshot Golden Ear Award winner for best emerging jazz artist in 1992 and 1993 – gained early notoriety with drum legend Tony Williams, vocalist Betty Carter, and his own brilliant trio releases. Check out the Earshot Jazz Festival Schedule to see what’s next in the last week of the 2011 Festival lineup.
A former Sony/Columbia recording artist, Travis Shook has been called a “man of mystery” by JazzTimes, “pianist-in-exile” by Time Out New York, and he has been highly praised by the likes of Tony Williams and Ahmad Jamal. Shook’s playing demonstrates an unusually wide scope of feeling from the simple to the complex, the conventional to the unconventional, and from the softest, most lush ballads, to the fiercest, hard-driving jazz.
Born in Orville, California, on March 10, 1969, Shook (who began studying the piano at the age of 7) moved to Olympia, Washington, with his parents when he was 10 and spent his adolescent years in the Pacific Northwest. At 18, Shook moved to New Jersey to attend William Paterson College, graduating in 1990 with a BA in jazz performance. He then returned to Washington State and spent three years in the band of veteran bassist Buddy Catlett (famous for his work with Count Basie and Louis Armstrong, among others). In 1993 – the year Shook moved to New York City – Columbia released his self-titled debut album, which boasted the late Tony Williams on drums, Bunky Green on alto sax and Ira Coleman on bass. (But Shook’s association with Columbia turned out to be short-lived. When Columbia’s jazz department went through a major regime change, Shook was dropped from the label along with Horace Silver, Joey DeFrancesco and many others.)
Then in 1994, jazz vocal innovator Betty Carter hired Shook as her pianist, and he ended up touring Europe extensively with her. The future looked promising for Shook, but not long after that European tour concluded, he entered a very dark period of his life and struggled with addiction for a few years, reaching sobriety in the late 1990s with the help of his wife, jazz vocalist Veronica Nunn. In 1999, he and Nunn started their own company, Full Gallop Entertainment, which includes his label, Dead Horse Records. They have released a trilogy of albums on Dead Horse: Nunn’s debut album, American Lullaby; Shook’s second album, Awake; and his third album, Travis Shook Plays Kurt Weill.
Reggie Workman, Eddie Harris, Joe Lovano, Toots Thielemans, Rufus Reid, Chuck Israels, Ernestine Anderson, Branford Marsalis, Benny Golson and Clifford Jordan are among the many jazz greats Shook has played with along the way. He maintains a busy performance schedule in New York, and Earshot Jazz is pleased to welcome him back to Seattle for tonight’s concert. – Danielle Bias from the Earshot Jazz Festival Schedule
Sonando Nonet
November 1st, 2011
Fred Hoadley’s Sonando at Town Hall
Opening up for Celebrating Coltrane and Mingus: We Four which Earshot Jazz Festival 2011 presented at Town Hall Saturday Oct 22 was an expanded Sonando nonet with guests Thomas Marriott (trumpet) and Mark Taylor (sax), bring a Latin slant to the restless genius of Charles Mingus. Sonando was founded in 1990 by Fred Hoadley and Lary Barilleau for the purpose of exploring new directions in the blending of Afro-Cuban rhythms and jazz.
Seattle photographer Michael Craft photographed this performance and these are his pictures.
Check out the Earshot Jazz Festival Schedule to see what’s next in the last week of the 2011 Festival lineup.
For this festival performance, an expanded nonet with guests Thomas Marriott (trumpet) and Mark Taylor (sax) brought a Latin slant to the restless genius of Charles Mingus. Sonando received the Earshot Golden Ear Award for Best Acoustic Jazz Band of 2007, and leader Hoadley has performed with a long list of Northwest Latin bands, including Expresión Latina, Yerbabuena, The Puentes Brothers and Grupo Son. His love of Latin music brought him to Cuba in 1983, 1990, 1993 and 1996, where he studied piano and arranging with Cesar Pedroso and Nelson Diaz, and Cuban tres guitar with Antonio Perez and Guillermo “Boulet” Matalear. He currently plays piano and tres in Sonando, Cambalache, Charanga Danzón, The Susan Carr Ensemble and Wesito & Friends. He also teaches piano, tres and Afro-Cuban jazz ensembles at Musicworks Northwest and Music Center Northwest.
Cory Weeds Group
October 28th, 2011
Cory Weeds Group at Tula’s
Earshot Jazz Festival 2011 presented the Vancouver BC saxophonist Cory Weeds has played with B3 master Dr Lonnie Smith, The Night Crawlers, and mellow vocalist Paul Anka while also excelling as a leader. His The Many Deeds of Cory Weeds (2010) featured organist Joey DeFrancesco, and remained in the JazzWeek charts for 10 weeks. Weeds performed at Tula’s with Mike LeDonne, guitarist Oliver Gannon and drummer Jesse Cahill.
Check out the Earshot Jazz Festival Schedule to see what’s next in the 2011 Festival lineup.
Entrepreneurial Vancouver saxophonist Cory Weeds is an experienced bandleader, producer, club owner and voice for jazz in the Northwest. His show Chasin the Train aired on Vancouver’s Co-op Radio, 102.7 FM, and he’s been heard on the popular CBC show Hot Air, a radio program covering all eras of jazz. He’s played with B3 master Dr. Lonnie Smith, with the Night Crawlers, and mellow vocalist Paul Anka. As a leader, his The Many Deeds of Cory Weeds (2010), featuring organist Joey DeFrancesco, remained in the JazzWeek charts for 10 weeks. Early work in his career with the popular Vancouver band People Playing Music enchanted Weeds to the funkier side of jazz – Maceo Parker, Grant Green, Dr. Lonnie Smith. His January 2008 debut recording as a leader featured New York heavyweights: guitarist Peter Bernstein, organist Mike Ledonne and drummer Joe Farnsworth. He’s at Tula’s with Mike LeDonne, guitarist Oliver Gannon and drummer Jesse Cahill.
Cory Weeds’ father introduced him to jazz at a young age, and Weeds played piano for 13 years before making the permanent switch to the alto saxophone in high school. He attended the music program at North Vancouver’s Capilano College for three years before moving to the University of North Texas in Denton on a scholarship. Back home, Weeds concentrated his energies as a performing musician, then branched out.
In 2000, Weeds purchased The Cellar, a restaurant and jazz club in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighborhood, since voted four times in the Top 100 Jazz Clubs Worldwide by DownBeat. With a focus on the promotion of Vancouver and Canadian musicians and as host to the likes of Charles McPherson, Frank Wess, Mulgrew Miller, George Coleman, Lou Donaldson, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Benny Golson and David Fathead Newman, it’s become an integral part in the advance of jazz in Vancouver and the Northwest.
Nelda Swiggett’s Stringtet
October 28th, 2011
Nelda Swiggett at The Chapel Performance Space
Earshot Jazz Festival 2011 presented Seattle gem, pianist Nelda Swiggett, who creates what All About Jazz called “refined and confident, open and inviting” music with “a bright palette, a sinewy execution, and a powerful, assertive command” with Chris Symer (bass), Byron Vannoy (drums), Rachel Swerdlow (viola), and Walter Gray (cello).
Check out the Earshot Jazz Festival Schedule to see what’s next in the 2011 Festival lineup.
Clumps of notes. That’s how pianist Nelda Swiggett describes musical shapes that are the basis of her compositions. But don’t be misled by the word clump. The notes are not dissonant, grating or random. Her music is precise without being dry, clean without being dull, and light without being fluff. The sound is as clear, direct and crisp as the gaze of her piercing blue eyes. And behind those eyes teems a sharp mind that leaves plenty of air within and around those clumps
Swiggett finds material for composition by improvising at the piano. Her hands strike the keys, she finds pleasing sounds, and figures out harmony and time signature later. But the improvisations do not grow from the blues like much of jazz. Her roots penetrate classical music. “I was a serious classical pianist growing up, and now have my own piano students playing Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc. I’m rediscovering all that great music as well. It’s all fodder for the imagination. But everything goes through the jazz filter.”
For this performance, Swiggett chose to add viola and cello. “I’ve been fantasizing about writing for strings for some time. Once I imagined strings, that was it. I was sure what I wanted to do. “My son Dylan became good friends with [Seattle Symphony violist] Rachel Swerdlow’s triplet boys in the Washington Middle School concert band years ago. When I set my sights on adding strings, I realized I had wonderful players right in front of my nose.” Swerdlow and Seattle Symphony cellist Walter Gray were enthusiastic about the project. “We’ve been having a great time sharing our different areas of musical expertise. Rachel is nervous but excited to be playing jazz for the first time. They’re showing me what incredible sounds and textures can be pulled out of the cello and viola.”
The rhythm section is anchored by Chris Symer on bass and Byron Vannoy on drums. “Chris and Byron have performed my music with me for several years now. They’re both incredibly musical. Have huge ears. They go wherever I go. Can swing hard, but drop to a whisper. That’s why I play with them.” – Steve Griggs from the Earshot Jazz Festival Schedule.
Garfield High School with Wessell Anderson
October 28th, 2011
Clarence Acox leads the Garfield High School Jazz Band at The Triple Door Tuesday
Earshot Jazz Festival 2011 presented the always exciting Garfield jazz band, nationally acclaimed, who performed with special guest, alto saxophonist Wessell Anderson, a veteran of the bands of Wynton Marsalis and a respected leader in his own right.
Check out the Earshot Jazz Festival Schedule to see what’s next in the 2011 Festival lineup.
Wessell Anderson’s dedication to jazz education is unwavering. Currently a faculty member in the jazz department at Michigan State University, for over a decade, he served as a mentor to students across the globe as a member of Wynton Marsalis’ globe-trotting Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Over the years, he had many opportunities to meet Clarence Acox and the student musicians who are part of the award-winning Garfield High School Jazz Band during the annual Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition each May in New York.
Although he studied with Alvin Batiste in Louisiana, and his big, vocalized sound and Marsalis association a might lead you to believe he’s from the trumpeter’s and Acox’s home state of Louisiana, Anderson was actually born and raised in New York City. For this concert, though, Anderson will bring his warm sounds to the Emerald City as the featured soloist for this set with the Garfield High School Jazz Band under Acox’s direction. In 2010, the band made history at the Ellington competition, becoming the first band ever to win the national contest four times. Expect a big band set of swinging tunes by legendary composers like Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Count Basie and Mary Lou Williams.
Thomas Mapfumo and Blacks Unlimited
October 28th, 2011
Thomas Mapfumo and Blacks Unlimited at Triple Door Monday
Earshot Jazz Festival 2011 presented The “Lion of Zimbabwe,” Thomas Mapfumo, and his music that he calls “influenced by the people who are struggling at home. Their voices have been silenced. Someone has got to talk.” His chimurenga – music of struggle – has merged Shona traditions and the West.
Check out the Earshot Jazz Festival Schedule to see what’s next in the 2011 Festival lineup.
“Our music speaks for the people. We are influenced by the people who are struggling at home. Their voices have been silenced. Someone has got to talk,” Thomas Mapfumo explains. Widely revered in his homeland as the “Lion of Zimbabwe,” Mapfumo brings the protest music known as chimurenga (which means “revolutionary struggle” in Shona) – which he invented and made popular – to Seattle. His compositions mix traditional Shona mbira (thumb piano) music with Western rock and other modern genres. Even as they decry social injustice, political oppression, the AIDS crisis and domestic violence, Mapfumo’s uplifting, upbeat and danceable songs celebrate the human spirit and speak to the universal need for freedom.
Afropop Worldwide proclaimed that “since his first single in 1974, Mapfumo has shown an unfailing ear for a hook, for reaching his people. His voice, once described as a ‘bass whisper,’ endures, its defiant moral authority transferred gracefully now from a brash youthfulness to the intonations of a serene elder.” Continue reading Earshot Jazz Festival program guide
