EyeShotJazz | Jazz Photography

Tinariwen at the Triple Door Tuesday night.

There was SRO, or rather there was dancing room only as everyone who could fit up under the stage was on their feet for almost the whole time they were playing. Earshot Jazz presented the Touareg group for 2 shows and they were both sold out.

‘Assouf’ is the name which the Touareg themselves often give Tinariwen’s guitar style. ‘Assouf’ means the blues, loneliness, heartache, longing, homesickness, the darkness beyond the campfire. From the sands of the Sahara in northern Mali comes the group Tinariwen playing concerts all over the world. Their music is soulful and makes you move your feet.

Earshot Jazz presented the Touareg group Tinariwen on stage at the Triple Door Tuesday night.

Both shows at the Triple Door were sold out  and there was SRO, or rather there was dancing room only as everyone who could fit up under the stage was on their feet for almost the whole time they were playing.  ‘Assouf’ is the name which the Touareg themselves often give Tinariwen’s guitar style. ‘Assouf’ means the blues, loneliness, heartache, longing, homesickness, the darkness beyond the campfire. From the sands of the Sahara in northern Mali comes the group Tinariwen playing concerts all over the world. Their music is soulful and makes you move your feet.

They were a big hit again in Seattle. I just got back from their concert and I will post some more photos from their performance in a few days.

All photographs on this website are by Daniel Sheehan © 2010. All Rights Reserved. Please inquire for permission to use.

Josh Rawlings, Fender Rhodes, Evan Flory-Barnes, double bass, Ahamefule J. Oluo, trumpet, and D’Vonne Lewis, drums performed at the CD release party at Electric Tea Garden Saturday night, up on Capital Hill. It was a great scens and the music was smokin.

All photographs on this website are by Daniel Sheehan © 2010. All Rights Reserved. Please inquire for permission to use.

Jay Clayton, vocals, Jerry Granelli, drums, Anthony Cox, bass and Julian Priester, trombone, performed in a special reunion concert at Cornish College Saturday night part of the Earshot Jazz Spring Series.

Originally from Chicago, Julian Priester’s performing career is long and varied, beginning with stints in his teens playing with blues and R&B legends Muddy Waters, Dinah Washington, and Bo Diddley. In the early 1950s Priester was also a member of Sun Ra’s big band, and recorded several albums with that group before leaving Chicago in 1956 to tour with vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. Priester subsequently settled in New York, and between 1961 and 1969 appeared as a sideman on albums by Max Roach, Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Blue Mitchell, Art Blakey, Joe Henderson, John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Charles Mingus, Johnny Griffin, and Sam Rivers. In 1969 he accepted an offer to play with Duke Ellington’s big band, then left in 1970 to join pianist Herbie Hancock’s fusion sextet. Since settling down in Seattle and joining the Cornish faculty in the late 1970s Priester has continued to perform as both a bandleader and sideman including tours with Sun Ra, Gary Peacock, the Dave Holland Quintet, Lester Bowie’s New York Organ Ensemble, and Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra. His compositions have been recorded by Sun Ra, Ray Charles, Herbie Hancock, Philly Jo Jones, Lee Morgan, Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, Clifford Jordan, and Dave Holland. His own music can be heard on the Riverside, ECM, and Conduit record labels.

Jay Clayton has gained worldwide attention as both performer and teacher. She has appeared at major venues including Lincoln Center, Sweet Basil, Town Hall, the Kennedy Center, Jazz Alley, and the North Sea and Montmartre Festivals. She has taught at Universitat fur Musik in Austria, Bud Shank Jazz Workshop, and at City College and the New School in New York City. She co-taught with Sheila Jordan at the Vermont Jazz Workshop, and at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada, and was on the faculty of Cornish College of the Arts for twenty years. Her book Sing Your Story: a Practical Guide for Learning and Teaching the Art of Jazz Singing is published by Advance Music. Jay has performed and recorded throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe with leading jazz and new music artists including Muhal Richard Abrams, Steve Reich, Stanley Cowell, Kirk Nurock, Gary Bartz, George Cables, and Jane Ira Bloom as well as with the a cappella group Vocal Summit comprised of Urszula Dudziak, Bobby McFerrin, Jeanne Lee, and Norma Winstone. Her current projects integrate poetry and electronics into her music. Her projects reflect the diversity of her art and her live performances, which range from duo to sextet, and are unique events that draw from all of these collaborations.

Bassist Anthony Cox has recorded with Arthur Blythe, Dewey Redman, Geri Allen, Mike Cain, Uri Caine and many others.

Halifax-based percussionist-composer Jerry Granelli grew up in San Francisco where he studied with Joe Morello and drummed for pianists Denny Zeitlin and Vince Guaraldi (on many a Charlie Brown television specials). He pioneered world jazz fusion and electro-acoustic percussion during the ‘60s, established the music department at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado in the 1970s, and has taught continuously since then in Boulder, Seattle, Halifax and Berlin. In the early ‘80s he performed and recorded in a trio with Ralph Towner and Gary Peacock for ECM records. He has recorded as a leader for Evidence, Intuition, ITM, and the Koch labels, and performed and recorded with longtime musical associates Mose Allison, Jay Clayton, Jane Ira Bloom, Glen Moore, Anthony Cox, Dave Friedman, and Jamie Saft, as well as projects with Bill Frisell, Robben Ford, Julian Priester, Charlie Haden, Kenny Garrett, and Buck 64.

All photographs on this website are by Daniel Sheehan © 2010. All Rights Reserved. Please inquire for permission to use.

Here are some more images from the annual Earshot Jazz Golden Ear Awards for 2009 from last Monday night. Above is Greg Williamson A-Y-P Large Ensemble performing before the awards were given out.

All photographs on this website are by Daniel Sheehan © 2010. All Rights Reserved. Please inquire for permission to use.

Below are some more pictures from the awards ceremony.

Steve Peters, co-founder of the Nonsequitur Foundation, which runs the Chapel Performance Space, also received a community service award.

David Pierre-Louis, owner of Lucid Jazz Lounge, was given a special award in recognition of dedication and innovation in support of the  Seattle Jazz community.

Steve Peters, co-founder of the Nonsequitur Foundation, which runs the Chapel Performance Space, also received a special award with gratitude in recognition of tremendous contributions to Seattle’s Creative Jazz Scene.

Just got back from the annual Earshot Jazz Golden Ear Awards and it was a blast to see how the jazz community in Seattle comes together like this every year. Old friends and new together again. Here are a few of the award winners tonight. I will post some more later in the week.

All photographs on this website are by Daniel Sheehan © 2010. All Rights Reserved. Please inquire for permission to use.

Kimberly Reason, Kay Bailey and Karen Shivers, accepted their award for Earshot Jazz’s prestigious Golden Ear Award for 2009 Northwest Vocalist of the Year for their group COCOA MARTINI and they thanked everyone including the members of their group, Bill Anschell on piano, Bernie Jacobs on flute and tenor saxophone, Doug Miller on bass, and Greg Williamson on drums.

Evan Flory-Barnes, Josh Rawlings and Jeremy Jones here accept the 2009 NW Acoustic Jazz Group Award for their group The Teaching

Evan Flory-Barnes was back up soon after to receive the award for 2009 NW Jazz Concert of the Year for his “Acknowledgment of a Celebration,” Town Hall, Earshot Jazz Festival, November 8

Neil Welch and Chris Icasiano won 2009 NW Alternative Jazz Group for Duo

Eric Barber took the 2009 NW Instrumentalist of the Year Golden Ear Award for his performances on saxophones.

Andy Clausen & Sjenka won 2009 NW Emerging Artist or Group

Last, but not least, Marc Seales received  the 2009 Jazz Hall of Fame award from fellow University of Washington faculty member Coung Vu.

More pictures from the evening later.

The Dawn Clement Trio: Dawn Clement, Geoff Harper on bass and Jazz Sawyer on drums at the Seattle Art Museum.

The Art of Jazz Series put on by Earshot Jazz in collaboration with the Seattle Art Museum continues every 2nd Thursday of every month with free admission. Dawn and her trio were in good form and did a couple of set that sounded great in the great hall of the Lobby of the museum
Jim Wilke was there too recording the music for his radio broadcast on Jazz Northwest program, Sunday afternoons, from 1 to 2pm on 88.5, KPLU.

The Azadeh Ensemble , made up of Sahba Motallebi, 2nd from left, then Sepideh Raissadat, Laya Etemadi, Bahareh Moghtadaei right and joining them as guest artist on left, Negar Booban, in performance at Town Hall in Seattle, on Friday Feb. 5th, 2010.

On Friday evening, Town Hall Seattle presented the Azadeh Ensemble, four outstanding virtuoso Iranian women musicians who formed in summer, 2009 in response to the political events in Iran, and the prominent role women have played within it, in their Northwest debut on Friday. In Farsi, the language of Iran, Azadeh means liberated. Azadeh Ensemble is one of the few all-female ensembles playing classical Persian music. Their exciting interpretations combine centuries of musical history with modern concerns of individual freedoms and the female voice.

Their vivid repertoire draws from classical Persian music, speaking especially to the concerns of individual freedoms and the female voice. As a women’s group, the Azadeh Ensemble is truly a rarity in Persian music, bringing these traditional forms into a dynamic contemporary context. Heading the ensemble, all of whom were born and trained in Iran but now live in the US, is the remarkable tar (a lutelike instrument) player Sahba Motallebi celebrated for the vigor and clarity of her playing on this stringed instrument, joined by the gifted vocalist Sepideh Raissadat, virtuoso kamanche (a Persian fiddle) and viola player Laya Etemadi, and Bahareh Moghtadaei on the tombak (drum). In the secod portion of their performance they were joined by joined by guest artist Negar Booban, of the Teharan Conservatory of Music, on the oud.

Not being familiar with Persian music it was enchanting and exotic: it was delightful and uplifting and also spiritful. At times I heard strains of the some traditional American blues and at other time their music brought to mind some old Irish folk tunes between the strings and drums. But most of the time it was as graceful and transporting as it was unfamiliar.Knowing their story and how they came to play together was inspiring. It is hard to believe that they can never play in thier home country together like this. I feel sorrow for them and even more for their fellow countrymen. I hope one day they may go and perform such as concert in their homeland.

As Motallebi said before a recent performance, “”[We] will be there as Persian women musicians who suffered a lot for the art and music in Iran. We have so many things to say and feelings to share for our women who want freedom … Our concert will be dedicated to [them].”

Read more in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette

All photographs on this website are Daniel Sheehan © 2010. All Rights Reserved. Please inquire for permission to use.

The band Bad Luck on stage at the Chapel Performance Space last Friday night.

Co-led by drummer Chris Icasiano and saxophonist Neil Welch, Bad Luck is about sound art, slowly developed loops and pedals used to propel the music into new aural fields. Tight-knit original compositions meet sonic mosaics in a musical relationship cultivated by years on the bandstand. I managed to catch them last Friday night and was glad I did. A complete jazz sound  from a dynamic duo.

All photographs on this website are by Daniel Sheehan © 2010. All Rights Reserved. Please inquire for permission to use.