Seattle Jazz Scene

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

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}

By Hugo Kugiya
Special to The Seattle Times

The young disciples of the Garfield High School jazz band amply backed up old master Houston Person Saturday night for two sets at the Triple Door. While experience carried the night, it was youth that stole the show.

Person, known for his breathy, bluesy style and his longtime partnership with the late vocalist Etta Jones, fronted the big band for renditions of the Louis Prima ballad “A Sunday Kind of Love,” the swing classic “Sentimental Journey” and Illinois Jacquet’s “Black Velvet.”

{read the entire article at seattletimes.com}

Here is today’s schedule:

5:30pm – Experience Music Project’s JBL Theater
Jazz writer Jeff Levenson conducts an oral-history interview of Lorraine Gordon, owner of NY’s fabled Village Vanguard, open to the public.

Tula’s Restaurant, 8:30pm
Michael Bates’ Outside Sources
New York bassist Michael Bates’s growing boldness as a composer earmarks 2007 as a banner year. This Vancouver International Jazz Festival standout plays at the crossroads of structural experimentation and indisputable charisma. Michael Bates, double bass, Russ Johnson, trumpet, Quinsin Nachoff, saxophone/clarinet, Jeff Davis, drums.
$15 general / $13 discount CALL 206-443-4221 FOR RESERVATIONS

Triple Door, 7pm & 9:30pm
Fred Hersch Trio
The herald pianist Fred Hersch — “a pristine pianist with a poet’s soul” (Boston Globe) — celebrates his recent Night and the Music with bassist Ben Street and drummer Nasheet Waits. $22 general / $20 discount

Tractor Tavern, 8pm
Buell Neidlinger Stringlickers
The Whidbey Island-based superbassist set out with Cecil Taylor, then sailed on to redraw the boundaries of bluegrass. He releases his new CD, which barely cages an untamed jazz and string-band menagerie.
$20 general / $18 discount

{more info}

The Israeli clarinetist and tenor saxophonist recently finished her first residency at the Village Vanguard, where she was the first female horn player to headline the famous club.

Cohen, one of the most visible members of a growing community of Israeli jazz musicians working in New York, has won a number of recent honors, among them “rising star” in the clarinet category in Downbeat’s annual critics poll (August issue).

Read the complete article at Seattle PI.com