Jon Garelick
Mostly the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival ends up being about the multiplicity and infinite variety of cultures and traditions, including generic funk.
You could sometimes be halfway into a Bad Plus show before hearing anything like a jazz chord from pianist Ethan Iverson.
The throughline of “Town and Country” is folk — austere, hardscrabble.
The sense of place, the passage of time, the death-haunted imagery, and the coolly rhythmic verse gives Lucinda Williams’s songs their traction.
The Fest’s music is mostly about audience participation — whether it’s dancing, sing-a-longs, or shouts of call-and-response.
But dissonance is at the edge of everything you hear at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival — a sound that contains multitudes.
Bill Frisell and his quartet performed a program of well-worn American hits whose juxtapositions allowed you to make your own cross-references and draw your own conclusions.
The New Orleans JazzFest is made for omnivorous gluttons, which makes it a perfect complement to the region’s cuisine.
Violinist Regina Carter and her band drew the audience in with a sustained mood of intimacy, warmth, and unfailingly beautiful playing.
Music Appreciation: Gunther Schuller –The Eloquent Ear
Gunther Schuller dove into jazz with passionate hunger, in the process dispelling cultural, class, and racial prejudices.
Read More about Music Appreciation: Gunther Schuller –The Eloquent Ear