Jensen/Anschell/Johnson/Bishop CD Release Concert at Tula’s this Saturday, November 10th

November 9, 2007 / / No Comments

Saxophonist Brent Jensen, pianist Bill Anschell, bassist Jeff Johnson, and drummer John Bishop will celebrate the release of their new Origin Records CD, “One More Mile.”

Saturday, November 10 – Tula’s Jazz Club
2214 2nd Avenue
Seattle, WA

Call for reservations: 206-443-4221
Music starts at 8:30pm
Tickets: $15

Jensen, who is heard exclusively on soprano sax on “One More Mile,” is based in Twin Fall, Idaho, where he heads the College of Southern Idaho’s jazz program. His 2002 recording, “The Sound of a Dry Martini: Remembering Paul Desmond,” charted at the #1 position on jazz radio stations across the country, and his other CDs have also enjoyed widespread airplay and critical praise. Anschell, Johnson and Bishop are first-call Seattle musicians who perform and record together frequently, both as the Wellstone Conspiracy trio and as a unit backing other jazz artists. All three have extensive recording discographies, and have toured both nationally and internationally. While they have performed with Jensen throughout the northwest, and recorded with Jensen backing Boise vocalist Jeff Baker, this is the quartet’s first release. “One More Mile” features a mix of standards and originals by Anschell and Johnson; the Seattle performance will add originals by Jensen, as well as lesser-known compositions by Lee Konitz and other jazz innovators.

Click here for more information about the new release, One More Mile

It’s Friday … what are you going to see tonight?

November 9, 2007 / / No Comments

Here are some shows tonight:

Tula’s Jazz Club: Greta Matassa Quartet
Jazz Alley: Bob James Quartet
Hiroshi’s: Karen Shivers & guests
Gallery 1412: Gust Burns/Jeffrey Allport Duo
Vino Bella (Issaquah): Fred Hoadley Trio
Egan’s Ballard Jam House: John Worley and Worlview 5.0 (from San Francisco – 9pm)
Serafina: The Djangomatics
Latona Pub: Leif Todasek and Phil Sparks (5:30 – 7:30pm)
Triple Door Musiquarium Lounge: The Cosmonauts Brazilian Jazz Band

Triple Door Mainstage: CéU: Samba Futures
From Earshot Jazz Calendar Listing: CéU is the most-heralded Brazilian songstress in some time, with good reason. With a voice as from some celestial reaches, a deep sense of the vaunted traditions from which she draws, and also a healthy disregard for just doing things in the same, old same-old way, she treads a pathway to samba’s future. She deploys electronics and stylistic innovations to great effect, which may offend the “purists,” if there could be any sense in claiming a “pure” samba, anyway. Not to miss.

Thursday Jazz

November 8, 2007 / / No Comments

Some gigs happening tonight:

Jazz Alley: Bob James Quartet
Tula’s: Kelley Johnson Vocal Showcase
New Orleans: Ham Carson Quintet
Asteroid Cafe: Tim Kennedy Jam Session (9:30pm)

What else is happening? Post what you are going to see tonight in the Comments section.

Kudos to the Seattle PI

November 8, 2007 / / No Comments

We would just like to take a moment and give some attention to the A&E Section of the Seattle PI. Their coverage of this year’s Earshot Jazz Festival was a notable step-up from previous years and all of their concert reviews were an excellent addition to the Seattle jazz scene.

If you appreciate the coverage, take a moment to write the editors and ask for more jazz coverage.

Seattle PI A&E Contacts

Seattle PI: Earshot’s closing act goes to extremes

November 8, 2007 / / No Comments

By ROSS SIMONINI
SPECIAL TO THE P-I

John Zorn and his Moonchild band needed no warm-up act Sunday night, the closing show of the Earshot Jazz Festival. Zorn is an underground legend, known for his prolific output and subversive experiments in rock, classical, klezmer and, most notably, jazz.

Consisting of cult icon Mike Patton (former singer of Faith No More), metal bassist Trevor Dunn and the virtuosic drummer Joey Baron — who played what appeared to be a hundred-piece drum set — Moonchild is Zorn’s newest, most riotous project. Instead of performing in the group, Zorn acts as composer and musical director, masterminding the show from his mixing board. The Earshot spokesman introduced the group by saying, “If you have a cell phone, turn it up, cause this band is LOUD.”

{Read the entire review at The Seattle PI}

Seattle PI: Horn-heavy October Trio loses its unconventional edge

November 8, 2007 / / No Comments

By BILL WHITE
SPECIAL TO THE P-I

Vancouver’s October Trio should go back to being a trio. Brad Turner, who produced their most recent CD, “Day In,” is a fine trumpet player, but his presence in the lineup forces the music into conventional structures that are contrary to the nature of the compositions.

Most of the music is written by bassist Josh Cole. Built on bass lines that are easily transferable to Evan Arntzen’s saxophone, they become rigid when arranged for two horns. The requisite soloing that follows the thematic statement is divided between Arntzen and Turner in such a predictable way that the music grows rigid, a series of historic poses. Individual personality is sacrificed to the emulation of models from Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan to John Coltrane and Miles Davis.

{Read the entire review at The Seattle PI}

Wednesday Jazz

November 7, 2007 / / No Comments

Go out and hear live music tonight!

The Hendrix Lounge: Origin Records’ regular Wednesday night gig in Columbia City tonight will feature John Bishop on drums, Jeff Johnson on bass and Rick Mandyck on guitar. The music starts at 9:00pm and it only costs $5.

Tutta Bella: Before heading over to the Hendrix Lounge, how about grabbing a bite to eat at Tutta Bella and listen to Katy Bourne and Randy Halberstat? The music starts at 6:30 and there is no cover!

Egan’s Ballard Jam House: Vocal Jam hosted by Carrie Wicks (8:00pm)

Tula’s Jazz Club: Greta Matassa Jazz Workshop

Jazz Alley: Steve Smith and Vital Information

The New Orleans: The Legend Band with Clarence Acox

Thaiku: Ron Weinstein Trio

And starting tonight!

Hammond B3 organist Joe Doria is starting a new weekly Wednesday night gig at The Victory Lounge (the old Lobo Lounge) with his longtime trio featuring Chris Spencer on guitar and Byron Vannoy on drums.

Every Wednesday
THE VICTORY LOUNGE
433 Eastlake Ave East {map it}
206.382.4467

Music starts at 9:30pm; $5 cover

Seattle PI Review: Iva Bittova at Earshot

November 6, 2007 / / No Comments

Singer-violinist delights with her ‘personal folk music’
By BILL WHITE
SPECIAL TO THE P-I

The final weekend of the Earshot Jazz Festival began with an intimate solo concert from violinist/singer Iva Bittová, a legend of the Eastern European avant-garde. She performed unamplified in the acoustically reverberant chapel at the Good Shepherd Center.

The standing room only audience was thick with many of Seattle’s most adventurous musicians. For them, the concert was in many ways an unexpected master class in the use of concision and subtlety in a music that is often given to excess and overstatement.

Click here to read the entire review.

Tuesday Jazz

November 6, 2007 / / No Comments

Here are some events happening tonight … most venues are linked on the right …

Egan’s Ballard Jam House: Susan Pascal and Dave Peterson (7:00pm)
Jazz Alley: Steve Smith and Vital Information
Triple Door Musicquarium: Rachel Bade-McMurphy
New Orleans: Holotradband
Tula’s: Jay Thomas Big Band

And for those who are looking for a jam session … Tuesday nights is when Seattle’s jazz musicians gather at the Owl ‘n Thistle for the weekly jam session with Bebop and Destruction.

The Owl ‘n Thistle
808 Post Ave
Seattle, WA 98104
(206) 621-7777

Seattle Times: SRJO Review

November 6, 2007 / / No Comments

From Monday’s Seattle Times:

Earshot | Great American songs, revived
By Hugo Kugiya
Special to The Seattle Times

Now that jazz is the subject of high art and the object of serious, scholarly pursuit, it sometimes seems as if in order to be good, the music ought to be a little uncomfortable to listen to, difficult to grasp, its intent obscured.

And then there is the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, or the SRJO, there to remind us that jazz — before it rightfully earned a place in Lincoln Center, before one could grow up to be a professor of jazz — was an early form of popular music.

That point was hammered home Saturday night at the Nordstrom Recital Hall in the big band’s Great American Songbook IV concert, one of a series of performances featuring thoughtfully interpreted arrangements of songs by America’s greatest popular composers. The popular SRJO concert came in the final weekend of the 17-day Earshot Jazz Festival, which ended Sunday.

Click here to read the entire article.

Alex Ross and Ben Ratliff discuss Jazz, Pop and Classical

November 6, 2007 / / No Comments

From Slate.com … an interesting email dialogue between two New York writers regarding composer/artists, audiences and perceptions of jazz and classical music.

People tend to listen to various kinds of music over the course of the day: rock at the gym, jazz on the drive home, maybe a little Vivaldi while waiting at the dentist’s office for the root canal. There’s a long tradition of mixed-genre listening in American culture: As Joseph Horowitz notes in his book Classical Music in America, opera houses in the 19th century would offer Don Giovanni together with “Ethiopian songs, choruses, solos, duets, jigs, fancy dances, etc.” Yet conversations about music always seem to take place within a particular genre. Our concept in this Slate Dialogue is to converse for a day or two across the walls of specialized taste. I write mostly about classical music for The New Yorker, though I’ve touched on pop. You write about various kinds of music for the New York Times, with an emphasis on jazz. You have an excellent new book on John Coltrane, telling the story of his sound and analyzing his complex place in the wider culture.

Click here to read the entire article.

New Wednesday Night Gig – Joe Doria Trio

November 5, 2007 / / No Comments

Hammond B3 organist Joe Doria is starting a new weekly Wednesday night gig at The Victory Lounge (the old Lobo Lounge) with his longtime trio featuring Chris Spencer on guitar and Byron Vannoy on drums.

Every Wednesday
THE VICTORY LOUNGE
433 Eastlake Ave East {map it}
206.382.4467

Music starts at 9:30pm; $5 cover

Steve Smith and Vital Information at Jazz Alley

November 5, 2007 / / No Comments

Tuesday – Wednesday, November 6-7 at Jazz Alley

Tom Coster – keyboards
Baron Browne – bass
Vinny Valentino – guitar
Steve Smith – drums

Now in their 24th year since their initial 1983 release, Steve Smith and Vital Information have become a formidable jazz/fusion juggernaut whose longevity surpasses all of the major fusion groups. The all-star lineup serves a veritable banquet of sounds, from slamming funk and syncopated second line grooves to seriously swinging, uptempo B-3 burners, South Indian inspired jams and sizzling fuzoid romps. The group’s founder and drummer, Steve Smith, has a resume that stretches from Ahmad Jamal, Zakir Hussain, The Buddy Rich Big Band and Steps Ahead to Andrea Bocelli and Journey. It is no surprise that he won Modern Drummer Magazine’s #1 All Around Drummer award five years in a row and was voted one of the Top 25 Drummers of All Time in a recent Modern Drummer reader’s poll. In 2002 Smith was voted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame.

Last Day of the Earshot Jazz Festival

November 4, 2007 / / No Comments

Moore Theater, 8pm
John Zorn’s Moonchild w/ Trevor Dunn, Joey Baron
& Mike Patton
Zorn, the one-off, mammoth talent, demonstrates his legendary production skills in this project. He conducts and mixes the sounds of Moonchild, a trio of bassist Dunn, the torrential Baron (drums), and vocalist Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle…) who taps the zeitgeist of rock exploration and decibel-heavy release.

Kirkland Performance Center, 3pm
Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra:
Great american songbook iv
UW sax professor Michael Brockman and ace drummer/educator Clarence Acox direct this local big band of all-star instrumentalists for “Great American Songbook IV,” featuring vocalists Greta Matassa, Bernie Jacobs, James Caddell, and others.

Triple Door, 7pm & 9:30pm
Jason Moran: Bandwagon
The pianist, now a Blue Note staple, innovates with startling pre-recorded elements and finds an ideal vehicle in Bandwagon, with drummer Nasheet Waits and bassist Taurus Mateen.

Today – Jazz Vespers

November 4, 2007 / / No Comments

Seattle Jazz Vespers features “Hot Club Sandwich” on Sunday, November 4, 2007 at 6:00 p.m. in the historic Gothic sanctuary of Seattle First Baptist Church: 100 minutes of popular jazz with an inspirational interlude. The concert is f-r-e-e, family-friendly and the dress is casual. Located at the corner of Harvard, Union and Seneca Streets on First Hill near Madison and Broadway. F-r-e-e lighted adjacent parking. For more information, visit http://www.SeattleJazzVespers.org

Read More

The Local Scene Tonight

November 3, 2007 / / No Comments

There are always a million options of music on any given night. Here are a couple of options for tonight in addition to the Earshot Jazz Festival.

CHUCK DEARDORF GROUP at Third Place Commons
First call Seattle bassist leads his group featuring Bill Anschell on piano and John Bishop on drums for a concert at Third Place Commons in Lake Forest Park starting at 8:00pm. The show is free. 17171 Bothell Way NE, Lake Forest Park, WA

MORE ZERO at Egan’s Ballard Jam House
The show starts late (11:00pm) but it might be the perfect show to check out after the Earshot Jazz Festival. Trombonist Chris Stover leads this group of Seattle’s finest through a set of original music.

GARY HOBBS TRIO at Bake’s Place
Portland drummer Gary Hobbs performs in a trio setting with Marc Seales on piano and Dave Captein on bass.

MARCO de CARVALHO at Tutta Bella Columbia City
Brazilian guitarist Marco de Carvalho always is enjoyable and with the early start time of 7:00pm this would be the perfect opportunity to catch a bite to eat before Earshot and also check out some great local jazz.

Saturday Night at Earshot

November 3, 2007 / / No Comments

The Earshot Jazz Festival goes out with a bang this weekend. Here is tonight’s sampling:

Tula’s Restaurant, 8:30pm
Aaron Goldberg Trio
The Brooklyn-based pianist, a Thelonious Monk Competition winner who toured with Joshua Redman and Wynton Marsalis, leads a sophisticated trio that boasts a stellar, rhythm section: bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland.
$18 general / $16 discount CALL 206-443-4221 FOR RESERVATIONS

Triple Door, 7:30pm
Elspeth Savani and Orchestra Zarabanda
Orchestra Zarabanda, a 12-piece Seattle-based dance band whose irresistible repertoire is inspired by the great Cuban orquestas and son groups of the last century, classic New York salsa/charanga and Cuban folkloric music.
$15 general

Chapel Performance Space, 8pm
October Trio w/ Brad Turner
Evan Arntzen (sax), Josh Cole (bass), and Dan Gaucher (drums) took the CBC’s Galaxie Rising Stars Award at Vancouver International Jazz Fest 2006. With standout trumpeter Brad Turner, they occupy the cutting edge of our neighbor to the north.
$15 general / $13 discount

Nordstrom Recital Hall, 7:30pm
Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra:
Great american songbook iv
UW sax professor Michael Brockman and ace drummer/educator Clarence Acox direct this local big band of all-star instrumentalists for “Great American Songbook IV,” featuring vocalists Greta Matassa, Bernie Jacobs, James Caddell, and others.

Seattle PI Review: North Africans unite for a jamming, drumming double bill

November 2, 2007 / / No Comments

By ROSS SIMONINI
SPECIAL TO THE P-I

Within the first few songs of the sold-out Malian music double bill, Vieux Farka Touré called a Town Hall audience out of the pews and onto the dance floor. When the floor became full, dancers clogged the aisles.

The son of legendary Ali Farka Touré, Vieux opened the show Wednesday with a set of West African jam-rock. His songs, like his father’s, are vehicles for the counterpoint between his lyrical electric guitar playing and his wailing Mississippi Delta blues vocalizations.

{read the entire review at The Seattle PI}

SRJO begins 13th Season this weekend

November 2, 2007 / / No Comments

SRJO begins 13th season with popular Great American Songbook concert

Dates, times and ticket prices:

– Saturday, November 3, 7:30pm
Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall (at Benaroya Hall)

– Sunday, November 4, 3:00pm
Kirkland Performance Center

Tickets: $15-$36

Available at:
– SRJO offices (206-523-6159) www.srjo.org

The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra (SRJO) will open its 2006-2007 concert series with the “Great American Songbook IV,” the always popular concerts featuring best-loved songs by great American composers such as George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington and others. Award-winning jazz vocalists Greta Matassa, James Caddell, and Bernie Jacobs will join the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra for this subscription season opener.

This is 13th annual concert series for the award winning orchestra. The concert featuring these great American song writers is one of the most popular in the orchestra’s repertoire. The “Great American Songbook IV” will be presented in the orchestra’s traditional two-concert format, one in Downtown Seattle and the other on the Eastside. The concerts will take place at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, November 3, in the Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall, and 3 p.m. Sunday, November 4, at the Kirkland Performance Center.

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Jack Brownlow made a mark as jazz pianist

November 2, 2007 / / No Comments

By Linda Shaw
Seattle Times staff reporter

Jack Brownlow learned to play the piano by ear at age 12. By his late teens, he was an accomplished professional. Although he never sought a national stage, he made a stir here as a musician’s musician, a quiet pianist known best for his harmonic sophistication and his encyclopedic knowledge of songs.

When he first heard Mr. Brownlow play, Paul Desmond, the alto saxophonist and lead soloist in the Dave Brubeck Quartet, reportedly remarked: “If I played piano, that’s how I’d want to play it.”

Mr. Brownlow died Saturday (Oct. 27) of kidney failure. He was 84.

{read the entire Obituary at The Seattle Times}