Burn List featuring: Chris Icasiano, Aaron Otheim, Greg Sinibaldi and Cuong Vu

Had some time tonight to catch 3 of the twenty or so shows on the Ballard Jazz Walk, on the 3rd day of the annual Ballard Jazz Festival. Burn List put on a great set upstairs at the Salmon Bay Eagles.

Playing downstairs at the Salmon Bay Eagles was Go By Train featuring: Clay Giberson, Dan Balmer, Charlie Doggett. Another cool set with a band I have not heard before.

That is one of the great things about the Ballard Jazz Walk. You get the opportunity to stroll around and hear more bands in an evening than you would any other way.

I finished up early Friday night because I have an early starting gig on Saturday but made sure to close with the amazing Suffering F**kheads featuring Ron Weinstein on the Hammond B3 Organ with Mike Peterson playing drums at The Copper Gate.

Be sure and try and make some of the performances on Saturday, the final day of the Festival. Here is a schedule for the remaining events.

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Billy Bang – 1948-2011

April 14th, 2011

Billy Bang, a violinist whose gritty, expressive and spirited playing earned admiration in contemporary jazz circles, died on Monday at his home in Harlem. He was 63. The cause was complications of lung cancer, said Jean-Pierre Leduc, his friend and agent.

Billy Bang in performance at the 2007 Earshot Jazz Festival

Photos of Billy are from his performance at the 2008 Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle October, 2008.

Prominent as a bandleader and a sideman throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Mr. Bang achieved his most substantial success with the 2001 album “Vietnam: The Aftermath,” which featured music inspired by his time serving in the Army during the Vietnam War, played with peers who had also served. The album — and a 2005 sequel, “Vietnam: Reflections,” which included Vietnamese musicians — in turn inspired “Redemption Song,” a 2008 documentary film about him.

Continue reading at The New York Times.