2009 Schedule

Thursdays in July, 7:30 pm
Chapel Performance Space
Good Shepherd Center
4649 Sunnyside Ave N
Seattle WA
$7-15 sliding scale

July 9:
Jim Norton Quartet
(more info)

July 16:
Sjenka
(more info)

July 23:
Seattle Phonographers Union
(more info)

July 30:
2nd Century Savage
(more info)

Earshot’s third annual survey of where jazz is going takes place this month. Jazz: The Second Century will present, on consecutive Thursdays, four groups whose members appear to have their fingers on the pulse of change in the art form. The goal of the Second Century series is not to grant greater credence to any particular way of creating jazz, nor to rule out any way of deploying its previous stylistic turns. But moving ahead, through whatever combination of mining the past and making use of new ideas, is the key: The series aims to detect some of the directions jazz and jazz-related musicians are taking to enliven their playing and our listening.

Each year, the series has revealed a wealth of thoughtful and often provocative contributions to that vivifying process. After all, isn’t innovation as essential a tradition of jazz as swing, as syncopation, and as soul?Submissions to the series have provided a thrilling sense that novel, galvanizing energies continue to flow into the music. Hopefully the descriptions, below, of this year’s selected performers will prompt you to come out and hear what these top-rate players have to contribute to the shape of jazz to come. Previous Second Century presentations have certainly been able, in many cases, to make believers out of audiences eager for the thrill of the new.

As was the case last year, the many submissions – 26, this time around – demonstrated that much is bubbling up in Northwest jazz. A panel of five observers, all dedicated to the performance or promotion of new jazz, gathered in mid-June to listen to submissions with as open an ear as they could, and to do their best to imagine which bands would provide riveting evenings of music. The panel rated the submissions through a blind-jury process. From that process emerged several able and compelling candidates. The musicians whose submissions were most highly rated were then selected for the four concert spots.

This year’s Second Century concerts are scheduled for four consecutive Thursday evenings beginning on July 9. The events take place at the Chapel Performance Space in the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford. The venue is comfortable and acoustically suited to the music. And free parking is abundant. Hope you’ll join us. It’ll get us all revved up for this year’s Earshot Festival, coming in the fall.

–Peter Monaghan