It was a low key beginning to my festival, but no less wondrous for that. A short summary…

Began my festival with Yarn/Wire, a 2 piano/2 percussion quartet from NY that presented a program of works by Alvin Lucier, Andrew McIntosh, and Misato Mochizuki. It was glorious. I took only one photo all evening, the one up top. It’s a lame attempt at catching the sunset refracted through the stained glass of St. John’s Cathedral, but I looked up and realized that sound and light had merged into a perfect compliment. Yarn/Wire might not look like a “band” in the popular vein, but after 18 years these four musicians have established an uncanny group awareness. They work together like a Swiss watch. read more

If you’ve seen my three other Big Ears preview articles (one, two, three) you have probably figured out that I have scheduled myself for way more shows than a single pair of ears can manage. The basic physics of time and dimension aside, there is probably only so much music you can actually hear in a given span of time before your ears grow dull and everything begins to burble along like grown ups talking in a Peanuts cartoon. But why stop now? read more

The allegedly weekly(ish) All That Jazz feature takes a gander at the jazz fest within the 2023 Big Ears Festival.

The Big Ears hullaballoo offers an almost preposterously wide range of musical styles, but you could just as easily spend the four festival days in your own hermetic jazz bubble. As long as your defininition of ‘jazz’ is a tad more flexible than, oh, Stanley Crouch or Albert Murray. So let’s go ahead and start with the stuff that makes the moldy figs cry.¹moldy fig: A 1940s modern jazz fan’s derogatory term for a fan of traditional jazz. It’s fun to note that many of those modern jazz fans became moldy figs themselves. (cf. Albert Murray and Stanley Crouch) read more

So Much Guitar is i2b’s weekly(ish) coverage of the best of the gajillion tremendous guitarists out there. This week, we take a gander at the tsunami of string slingers invading Knoxville for the 2023 Big Ears Festival. ¹I’ve been thinking a lot about Col. Bruce this past week and almost went with “Too Many Gittars” but I lost my nerve. read more