The festival presents 200 shows in 12 unique venues, most of them within walking distance of each other and close to restaurants and hotels. Though four-day tickets are moderately pricey, ranging from $250 to $750, the festival sold out weeks ago, the first time it’s ever done that, according to founder and CEO Ashley Capps, who is also co-founder of the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. What followed was a tender, through-composed 75 minutes of exquisite chamber jazz, suffused with melancholy and happiness.īut other moments were just as memorable: from the fingerstyle guitar of Yasmin Williams, cracking jokes in the demure interior of the First Baptist Church, to the haunting Haitian folk songs of Leyla McCalla, at a former glass factory called The Standard. In tribute to their leader, Moran said at the beginning of their set, “we’re playing all music by Ron Miles.” For this reporter, one peak experience came on Friday evening at the jewel-box venue, the Bijou, courtesy of the quartet of guitarist Bill Frisell, pianist Jason Moran, bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Brian Blades.Īll were members of a band led by the late cornetist Ron Miles, who died early this month at age 58 of a rare blood disorder. Downtown darling Kim Gordon, formerly of Sonic Youth, was 35 minutes late for a 75 minute show, and then had to pause while equipment malfunctioned.īut well-coordinated volunteers and prompt artists made sure that, on the whole, everything was what Kapilian called “top notch.”Įvery visitor probably experienced different high points. On Friday night Danny Kapilian, 66, a concert producer from Manhattan and New Orleans, bubbled about performances he’d already heard from ambient artist Fennesz, harpist Maeve Gilchrist and singer/songwriter Bill Callahan, none of whom were familiar to him.
Sports commentator with big ears full#
At breakfast on Saturday she praised the art of meandering, and discovering “those little delicacies that you find when you don’t know who they are.”īig Ears has, in fact, nurtured visitors who trust the festival enough to attend a four-day extravaganza full of relatively unknown artists. “I like things that are not mainstream,” said Carol Noon, 59, who works at the non-profit Waterways in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
0 kommentar(er)
