John Gilbreath photo by Bill Uznay

Earshot Jazz is equally invested in the rich history and brilliant future for the art form of jazz. One always-fascinating aspect of jazz music’s journey from the American south is its ongoing progression and interpretation in completely diverse cultures around the world. Jazz has become an international language. 

This year’s spring series has been an interesting showcase of the global dialogue. The series wraps up this month with two incredible international projects, both stimulated by the French American Cultural Exchange (FACE) program, and both featuring creative international collaborations around the common language of improvised jazz music. 

It has been some years since the powerhouse duo of Hamid Drake and William Parker have played together in Seattle. We are fortunate that their June 20 return, at the Chapel Performance Space, also includes the legendary New Orleans master Kidd Jordan and the fantastic French pianist François Tusques. 

Uniting the world on June 22, also at the Chapel, is a truly remarkable gathering of creative artists, primarily instigated by the Bay Area saxophone provocateur Larry Ochs, of the ROVA quartet, and the Frenchmen Silvain Kassap, on reeds, and Didier Petit, on cello. This East/West Collective also features Miya Masaoka, the remarkable player of the Japanese koto, and Xu FengXia on the Chinese guzheng and vocals. Sharing the bill that night are the German saxophonist Alfred 23 Harth and the German/Canadian bassist Torsten Mueller. 

An interesting thread has recently developed, which ties together these two June concerts with the gorgeous May engagement by the Refuge Trio, featuring John Hollenbeck. A new artist fellowship program, Doris Duke Leading Artists, which selected Hollenbeck in its first year, has recently named Miya Masaoka and William Parker as recipients in its second round of awards. In addition to an impressive sum of money, the prestigious program acknowledges both significant life work and future potential of the selected fellows. Seattleites Bill Frisell and Pat Graney are also among the winners. 

I had my own French/American jazz epiphany in Paris at the end of April. I found myself thinking about the middle of jazz as I spent a quiet hour with the eight large Water Lilies murals by Claude Monet, at Musée de l’Orangerie. The two oval galleries in this museum were built specifically for these canvases, in an agreement with the artist before the paintings were even begun. Kind of like a musical commission. Reflecting the thick bounty of Monet’s gardens at Giverny, the huge murals include no horizon, releasing the viewer from the task of reconciling position and perspective, and offering the pure center of the art as subject. Like improvised music, with little melodic or rhythmic structure, the brush strokes are abstract upon close scrutiny but find complete harmony at various points in the middle distant. 

In that new and diffuse light, I am absolutely looking forward to these June concerts. I invite you to join us in celebration of the expanding art form that we all love.

– John Gilbreath, Executive Director