Rudresh Mahanthappa photo by Jimmy Katz
October 7-November 11
Various venues, Seattle
Save the date(s)! The 2016 Earshot Jazz Festival is right around the corner.
The Earshot Jazz Festival, “Seattle’s most important annual jazz event” (DownBeat), brings established jazz masters and exciting emerging artists from around the world into creative contact with Seattle artists, audiences, and students each fall. This year’s festival features over 300 artists, in 60 concert events, in 15 venues all around the city, from October 7 to November 11.
The festival schedule, available online at www.earshot.org later this month, includes brilliant international projects like the pianist Vijay Iyer’s duo with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa’s tribute to Charlie Parker in his Bird Calls quintet, Pakistani guitarist Rez Abassi with his trio, German pianist Georg Graewe, and the West African vocalist Rokia Traoré. Also appearing are young urban artists like Kris Bowers, Takuya Kuroda, and Jaimeo Brown Transcendence, who use today’s deep beats to fuse the past into the future of jazz, plus anticipated collaborations between trumpeter Dave Douglas and The Westerlies, and pianists Kris Davis and Craig Taborn.
Earshot collaborates with Seattle Theatre Group to bring the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis into the beautiful Paramount Theatre. Funk Master Maceo Parker and the beloved Seattle guitarist Bill Frisell appear in separate events at the Moore Theatre. The festival winds up on November 11 with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra paying special tribute to Seattle legend Quincy Jones at Benaroya Hall, in a program that features the award-winning jazz band from Jones’ alma mater, Garfield High School, along with guest trumpeter Cuong Vu. Grace Love will add a vocal note to Seattle’s much-loved jazz vocalist Ernestine Anderson, who passed away earlier this year.
Jazz has been called “America’s Greatest Gift to World Culture.” Today’s ever-expanding jazz sound is right at home here in one of America’s fastest-growing cities. As always, the Earshot Jazz Festival will showcase artists from Seattle’s vibrant jazz community, including D’Vonne Lewis as this year’s Resident Artist, Naomi Moon Siegel, Thomas Marriott, Samantha Boshnack, Josh Rawlings, and Eugenie Jones, bringing to life the quote from the NEA’s recent profile of this very active, non-profit organization: “Earshot Jazz is a true community organization, thinking globally and working locally.”
Tickets for the Earshot Jazz Festival go on sale September 1. Complete festival information will be available as it develops at earshot.org and 206-547-6763.
