Results tagged “jazz”

As this show is part of The Earshot Jazz Festival, it stands to reason that the set might trend toward the jazz/R&B end of her spectrum, putting her jamming conglomerate to full use. It’s sure to please.

SILENT SCREEN: Trader Joe's Silent Movie Mondays at the Paramount is back and focusing on the speechless girls of black-and-white. Words fail you when discussing Cecil B. DeMille's The Godless Girl anyway--Judith and Bob are young atheists who naturally end up in a reform school run by sadists. This is an ur-Girls Gone Wild visual text and will count for credit if you are a student of this kind of counter-history. The important thing is, Judith and Bob learn that those fires of hell are real and they burn, thus making Christianity something more than an academic choice.

As if Sasquatch, Bumbershoot and concert series at Marymoor Park, wineries, and the zoo weren't enough, also coming up: Sounds Outside, the fourth annual free avant-garde music festival presented by the Monktail Creative Music Concern. Dubbed "a celebration of adventurous music and community," this year's fest takes place on two non-consecutive Saturdays, July 25th and August 15th, at Cal Anderson Park. Full lineup after the jump.

MvB is off to Annex Theatre tonight for Love's Tangled Web; Saturday night is Bosco's jazz gig/CD party at The Mix in Georgetown. Sunday he hopes to be kissed--with tongue--by the spring sun's rays.

We spoke with Seattle jazz composer Andrew Boscardin about his new album Four-Color Heroes, the kind of inspiration you get from comic books, and what jazz that wears tights and a cape sounds like. Download the song "Professor Kubert" here, or listen to "Grimm's Waltz" on Jazz NW.

WRITERS GROUP: It's a daylight meetup of the Seattle Writers Group. They're gathering at Greenlake's Revolutions Espresso (across the street from Gregg's Greenlake Cycle) for 45 minutes of writing followed by 15 of discussion. Here is the thing that will help set your writing career on the path: "onsite bakery." It's sort of an insider's thing but behind every great writer is a choice pastry. Joyce=scone with currants and orange peel. True story.

The stage at Jazz Alley was cramped for a nine-person band. Before funkified sax master Maceo Parker and his crew hit the stage, the drums were shoved hard against the rear curtain like a belt buckled tight around a pair of empty pants. When Jerome Thomas took to his kit, he had to squeeze through and climb around, and he played much of the set like only the funkiest rhythm could release him. It was fitting accompaniment to a set that included songs with titles like "Off the Hook," "Make it Funky," "Shake Everything You've Got," and "Funky Fiesta."

DIAL M-A-C-E-O: You know how some people are so funny (Steve Carell, Ellen DeGeneres) that just looking at them makes you laugh? Well, that's kind of how Maceo makes us feel, but instead of making us laugh, he makes us get funky. He's played with everyone who matters—from James Brown to Prince—and he's here tonight and for the rest of the weekend to bring the funk to you. How lucky you are!

TODAY IS WORLD REFUGEE DAY! The International Rescue Committee is hosting a benefit night of poetry, music, dance and crafts from our local refugee community at the Seattle Center, and John Hilde's Made In China (a documentary about his father's childhood in pre-WWII China) is screening at the NWFF with proceeds going to Mercy Corps' work in the devastated Sichuan province of China. Be a good neighbor and enjoy these artsy celebrations of diversity and tradition!

SALMAN RUSHDIE: He'll be hitting Town Hall tonight to read from his latest effort, The Enchantress of Florence. According to the press release, it sounds like it's one of those quasi-fictional tales pitting opposites against each other (and, possibly, in the process, showing how opposites attract?). Tickets are available at University Bookstore for $5 a pop, or you can just buy a copy of the novel and use that as your entry.

Hiphop's King of Ballard, an inspired young emcee named Grynch, sat down with us over chicken satay (which he thought was delicious, and said so several times) to discuss everything from backpack rap to The Program. Here's what the man has to say. And catch his set tomorrow night at The Sunset--it's your last chance until June!

Part of the reason we Zipcar-ed out to Ballard was to see the space that The Space (aka the 608 Club, at 608 NW 65th) is in. We found a door that said 608 on it and walked into a foyer crammed with electric organs and keyboards and a couch. People glanced up at us, but we kept on, down a hall to a small merch table that also contained a paper bag filled with small brownie squares. To the right was a larger room with instruments at one end, a few chairs at the other. We ended up sitting on the floor for the shows (Faun Fables sat next to us during Estradasphere's set). People--mainly Estradasphere, we think--live upstairs.

Even though he grew up in Seattle and has recently joined the UW jazz studies faculty, and even though he had an intriguing-looking gig at SAM during last fall's Earshot Jazz Festival, we still haven't managed to catch a performance by trumpeter Cuong Vu. But we'd sure like to catch him tonight at UW's Meany Hall and finally hear him in person.

When your band's roster (Gonzalez on trumpet and congas; Andy Gonzalez, bass; Larry Willis, piano; Steve Berrios, drums; Joe Ford, sax/flute) has been in place since 1990, you have time to develop the musical telepathy that makes jazz jazz. And when that telepathy communicates both the bebop-and-beyond mainstream and Puerto Rican popular music (via the Bronx), you have an unusually savory mix.

If you heard only the NPR news blip on jazz pianist Oscar Peterson's death, you heard that he was "well known for having won many prizes." Not sure what skeleton holiday crew came up with that dismal description. Prizes were hardly the source of Peterson's fame.

The glorious fall sunsets have disappeared along with the mouldering husks of Halloween pumpkins, and according the weather report, we can all expect a long, cold, wet weekend. But this being the Northwest, that's never stopped us from getting out and about; here's the weekend plans of your intrepid Seattlest contributors:

We have a message for 15-year-old us: "You are a fuckface."

MUSICAL REVIEW: Tonight Seattlest Matt is checking out what was the longest-running musical review in the history of Broadway, Smokey Joe's Café. A hit-list from the '50s and '60s of songs by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, it opens tonight and runs through June 17th. We can almost hear the K-TEL announcer: Featuring 40 of the greatest songs ever recorded, including such hits as "On Broadway," "Hound Dog," "Jailhouse Rock," "Stand By Me," "Spanish Harlem," "Love Potion #9," and "I’m a Woman."

Having never been to the Triple Door, we did a 'lil looky-loo on the series of tubes that is the internets. The place seemed a little more hoity-toity than we were used to, with its plush half-moon booths and candle-lit tables. Reluctantly, we ditched the jeans we'd worn for three days and dappered up a bit. Upon arrival at the Triple Door, we're greeted by a lovely hostess who shows us to our table, tells us a little about the place. Our waitress shows up a moment later, takes our drink order, tells us the dinner and app specials. It's a different universe than we're used to when it comes to seeing a show. We feel a little lost, but when the music starts, it feels right. Laura Veirs and openers Lake are, after all, pretty mellow music-wise. Seeing them in this kind of setting, on a Friday night, after an exhausting work-week, well, it's just... nice. Yeah, nice.

All across the Ist-A-Verse (or at least the American parts thereof), writers and editors are in the midst of enjoying their three-day weekend. But after the week we've all had, we feel like the break is not only needed, but deserved. Just look at everything we've been doing!

The first thing we noticed when we got to Egan’s Ballard Jam House on Saturday was that the place was designed by architects from Mattel, with parts left over from Barbie’s last house. The front room is as roomy as the backseat of a Volvo. The main dining/concert room is like an elongated hallway with a stage built into one wall. Even before the band started, the placed felt packed; this was because there were 31 people there (we counted).

ELECTION NIGHT PARTY: Get happy with Cary Moon and the People's Waterfront Coalition, the prophets of the surface/transit waterfront.

As he stumbled and bumbled through last night's quiz one thing was certain, Seattlest David was having serious issues rocking the mic. He considers it a miracle that only one coaster was thrown at him.

TRIVIA: Tonight at the Old Pequilar. Seattlest David hosts. Guaranteed round: sesquipedalianism, or "addiction to unnecessarily long words." Also movies and geography.