EyeShotJazz | Jazz Photography

Saturaday and Sunday nights the 2013 Earshot Jazz Festival presented the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra: Take Five: Remembering Dave Brubeck
The region’s all-star jazz aggregation pays tribute to pioneering pianist and composer Dave Brubeck in a concert exploring his long, astounding career. Take Five has been the best-selling jazz hit of all time, and is just one of the many Brubeck chart-toppers you will hear in this concert, including Blue Rondo à la Turk, The Duke, and In Your Own Sweet Way.
Here is a link to the Earshot Jazz Festival website  schedule for the rest of the Festival.

Brooklyn-based composer Darcy James Argue, a five-time winner of the Downbeat Critics Poll, credited with “making big band cool again”, lead the Cornish Contemporary Big Band in a concert of his compositions.on thursday night at Poncho Hall in as part of the offerings of the 2013 Earshot Jazz Festival.
Active in New York with his 18-piece ensemble Secret Society since 2005, Vancouver native Darcy James Argue first gained international recognition with his widely acclaimed 2009 debut, Infernal Machines (New Amsterdam Records), which appeared on over 100 best-of-the-year lists, earned Grammy and Juno nominations, and quickly made him one of the most talked-about musicians in jazz. In addition to appearances at venues ranging from jazz and rock clubs to such prestigious theaters as the Bimhuis, Merkin Hall, and the Kennedy Center, the group has also performed at the Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver Jazz Festivals, the Ecstatic Music Festival, the London Jazz Festival, the Moers Festival, New York’s Winter Jazzfest, the Newport Jazz Festival, and Brazil’s BMW Jazz Festival. Argue premiered his latest project, Brooklyn Babylon, an innovative multimedia collaboration with graphic artist Danijel Zezelj, over the course of four nights at Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival in 2011, and has recorded the music for a 2013 release. Argue’s awards include the BMI Jazz Composers’ Workshop Charlie Parker Composition Prize and SOCAN’s Hagood Hardy Award. He has received commissions from the Danish Radio Big Band, the Hard Rubber Orchestra, the West Point Jazz Knights, the Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos, the Jazz Gallery, the Manhattan New Music Project, and the Jerome Foundation, as well as grants and fellowships from New Music USA, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the MacDowell Colony.

Here is a link to the Earshot Jazz Festival website  schedule for the rest of the Festival.

After The Westerlies opened up at the Royal Room las Friday night, Wayne Horvitz and the Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble played a great set.

In May,  Horvitz and the Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble held a week-long residency at the Stone – the East Village nonprofit artist space founded by John Zorn. In conjunction with the residency, the ensemble released a limited-edition live Royal Room recording of their performances of Horvitz’s compositions, spontaneously arranged by his musical cues and gestures. The group is directed by eminent composer, pianist and electronic musician Horvitz, with Beth Fleenor (clarinet), Kate Olson (saxophone), Jacob Zimmerman (saxophone), Craig Flory (clarinet, saxophone), Samantha Boshnack (trumpet), Al Keith (trumpet), Steve O’Brien (trumpet), Naomi Siegel (trombone), Jacob Herring (trombone), Geoff Harper (bass) and Eric Eagle (drums).

Here is a link to the Earshot Jazz Festival website  schedule for the rest of the Festival.

Here is a link to the Earshot Jazz Festival website  schedule for the rest of the Festival.

As the 2013 Bellevue Jazz Festival  continues, bassist and composer Evan Flory-Barnes opened for Kendrick Scott last night at the Theatre at Meydenbauer Center with a wonderful group of artists and played some beautiful  new compositions.  Evan Flory-Barnes played on Bass, Dawn Clement on Piano, Craig Flory on Winds, Art Brown on Winds, Ahamefule J. Oluo on Trumpet, Josiah Boothby on French Horn, Nathan Vetter on Trombone, Jon Hansen on Tuba, Jeremy Jones on Drums

Flory-Barnes cultivation in music started early on at Garfield High School where he was a member of an award-winning symphony orchestra. The young Seattle native envisions the creation of music with no barriers— he strives to compose music that reflects beauty, stirs emotions and enlightens the soul. Flory-Barnes’ musical span reaches across many genres having written music for the hip hop group Maroon Colony and collaborated with many renowned jazz musicians nationally and internationally.

The Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble playing Monday night at the Royal Room.

The RRCME is a 15-20 piece band featuring Seattle’s finest and most innovative improvisers under the direction of composer Wayne Horvitz and performed his compositions in a loosely constructed format using a combination of on-the-spot (re)arranging and various other techniques, some of which have come to be known as “conduction”.  Regular members include Beth Fleenor, Chad McCullough, Al Keith, Sam Boshnack, Ryan Burns, Geoff Harper, Greg Sinibaldi, Jacob Zimmerman, Craig Flory, Eric Eagle, Kate Olson, Naomi Siegel, Jacob Herring and Wayne Horvitz.

For moe on this amazing group of people look for the upcoming May issue of Earshot Jazz Magazine.

Last night at Town Hall, Earshot Jazz presented the Ballard and Roosevelt High School Jazz Bands as part of the 2012 Earshot Jazz festival. I missed the Ballard Band but made some pictures of the Roosevelt HS Jazz Band. Under Scott Brown, Roosevelt has been a perennial powerhouse at the national Essentially Ellington festival. It shared the stately Town Hall stage with its ever-strengthening Ballard HS counterpart, directed by Michael James.

The 2012 Earshot Jazz Festival continues in it’s  last week ending on Sunday with Robert Glasper. Click on the schedule here 2012 Earshot Jazz Festival 

Roosevelt returned from a two-week summer European festival tour and second place finish at New York’s Ellington contest last May. “With loads of new talent and a strong core of veteran leadership,” Brown writes, “this year’s band is sure to be swinging!”
Brown, a trombonist, loves his job. “As a director, I am blessed to have so many wonderful musicians attending Roosevelt High School. When everyone in the band is ‘on the same page’ musically and spiritually, there is nothing better than to hear them swinging their tails off!”

These band directors draw on the pool of professional freelance regional artists to mentor their students. Brown hired saxophonist Stuart MacDonald as assistant director. MacDonald graduated from Roosevelt in 1991. James enlisted saxophonist Gary Hammon to help develop his band. Hammon emerged from the Seattle funk and free jazz scene, studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, toured with organist Big John Patton, returned to Seattle and recorded Fangs in 2005 with saxophonist Hadley Caliman.

The 2012 Earshot Jazz festival continues. Click on the schedule here 2012 Earshot Jazz Festival 
Wow. Last night at The Royal Room was a blast. B’shnorkestra is trumpeter Samantha Boshnack’s 14-piece ensemble of strings, horns and drums. Now a one-year-old amalgam of regional performers, the group is Joshua Kohl conducting Boshnack and violinists Alex Guy and Alina To, violist Brianna Atwell, cellists Daniel Mullikin and Maria Scherer Wilson, bassists Tim Carey and Isaac Castillo, woodwind players Chris Credit and Tobi Stone, French horn player Greg Campbell and percussionists Lalo Bello and Adam Kozie.

Boshnack attended Bard College, where she studied jazz performance and composition. A move from New York to Seattle in 2003 prompted lasting music collaborations. Of this project, the composer writes, “New musical connections and friendships have been forged. It felt wonderful to be the catalyst of that and have such accomplished musicians playing my music, really getting into it, and working together so well.”

Boshnack garnered financial support for this large project from multiple granting organizations and raised funds through Kickstarter to record eight compositions at Bear Creek Studio. That recording will be released in 2013, and this festival performance includes music from the recording, plus the premier of a new work.

Monday night at the Triple Door as the 2012 Earshot Jazz festival enters another week of wonderful performances, The  Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble put on a great set.  The Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble is a  conduction group led by Wayne Horvitz, featuring many of the same musicians as the Voodoo Orchestra who they were opening for: drums Bobby Previte, saxophones Greg Sinibaldi, Neil Welch, Kate Olson, bass clarinet Beth Fleenor, trumpets Al Keith, Samantha Boshnack, Steve O’Brien, trombones Naomi Siege, Jacob Herring, French horn Tom Varner, string bass Geoff Harper and piano Ryan Burns.

Click on the schedule here 2012 Earshot Jazz Festival  continues.

 

The Royal Room Collective operates around a unique system of instant arranging fueled by musical symbols that Horvitz newly created specifically for this music.

– NB

International jazz star and acclaimed saxophonist, flutist, composer and band leader James Moody died today in San Diego. Above picture was made at the Earshot Jazz Festival in 2008 when he played with the SJRO and came out on stage with Bill Cosby.

“Mr. Moody died at 1:07 p.m. at the San Diego Hospice, according to his wife, San Diego Realtor Linda McGowan Moody, who was by his side. His death came after a 10-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

“He couldn’t have gone more peacefully,” said Mrs. Moody, who on Monday had her husband moved from their San Carlos home to the San Diego Hospice.”

Continue reading at San Diego Union-Tribune

Once again the Bellevue Jazz Festival is here and kicking it off at the Meydenbauer Theater was The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra (SRJO), the Northwest’s premier big band jazz ensemble. Founded in 1995, the 17-piece big band is made up of the most prominent jazz soloists and band leaders in the greater Seattle area. SRJO played a concert of highlights from their 2009-2010 concert season, including hits from their November 2009 “Tribute to Ray Charles” concert (“One Mint Julep,” “Moanin”), their March 2010 “Big Band Monk and Mingus” concert (“Haitian Fight Song” by Mingus, “Misterioso” by Monk), their April 2010 “Birth of the Cool” concert (Boplicity, Rocker), and a new Michael Brockman composition for the SRJO titled “Passage Noir.” Featured soloists included trumpeter Jay Thomas, baritone saxophonist Bill Ramsay, pianist Randy Halberstadt, tenor saxophonist Hadely Caliman and Travis Ranney, trombonists Dan Marcus and David Marriott, plus alto saxophonists Mark Taylor and Michael Brockman.
Here are some highlights from the concert.

For tickets and more information go to the Festival website; Bellevue Jazz Festival

Jazz Photography by Seattle photographer Daniel Sheehan, who photographs jazz performances, and creates portrait photography for publications and Seattle Wedding Photography with an artistic photojournalist style. See more work from this Seattle Photographer.