The 35th annual Earshot Jazz Festival is here, and we are proud to welcome you to a week of music co-presented with LANGSTON, and at the historic Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute from October 23 through October 28. Tickets on sale below.
John Escreet Trio 10/23
Join us for this performance on Monday, October 23 at 7:30 pm PDT at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. This event is in-person*. Tickets are $12-38.
Learn more about John Escreet Trio's performance co-presented with Langston.
Pianist/composer John Escreet, hailed by Time Out London as a “transatlantic jazz genius,” continues his artistic ascent. The UK native, former Brooklynite and now Los Angeles transplant John Escreet teams up with fellow Angelenos Eric Revis (bass) and Damion Reid (drums) for a set brimming with fire and invention. Their recently released album Seismic Shift (2022, Whirlwind Records) offers ground-shaking evidence that Escreet, with his limitless technique, harmonic imagination and refined grasp of the improviser’s art, ranks as one of the top pianist-auteurs of our time. Equally at home in mainstream, electric, avant-garde and world jazz contexts, he has also built a reputation as a versatile sideman and collaborator with credits including Antonio Sanchez, Tyshawn Sorey, Amir ElSaffar, David Binney, Harish Raghavan, Louis Cole, Genevieve Artadi, and Evan Parker among others.
“Any music I present needs to be varied,” Escreet says. “There needs to be beauty alongside the wild moments, moments of tonality against moments of abstraction. Most of all, any idea put forward, whether composed or improvised, needs to have clarity and purpose.”
*Earshot Jazz COVID-19 Policy: Earshot recommends that all ticket holders be vaccinated. Policy subject to change. Full COVID policy here.
John Escreet photo by Shervin Lainez
Jane Bunnett and Maqueque 10/24
Join us for this performance on Tuesday, October 24 at 7:30 pm PDT at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. This event is in-person*. Tickets are $12-38.
Learn more about Jane Bunnett and Maqueque's performance co-presented with Langston.
An Earshot Jazz Festival favorite, Jane Bunnett and Maqueque returns this festival. What started out nearly a decade years ago as a project to record and mentor young brilliant Cuban female musicians, has become one of the top groups on the North American jazz scene. Maqueque means “the spirit of a young girl, in the ancient Afro-Cuban dialect.” Since 2015, they have played in major jazz festivals like Newport and Monterey, been featured on NPR’s program Jazz Night in America, won a Juno Award for their first album, Jane Bunnett and Maqueque, were nominated for a Grammy Award for their second release, Oddara and were nominated for a Juno Award for one of their more recent releases, On Firm Ground/Tierra Firme. Most recently, they were voted as one the top ten jazz groups by the prestigious DownBeat magazine’s critics poll. Their latest album Playing With Fire (2023, Linus Entertainment) showcases their cutting-edge evolution and ongoing commitment to ingenuity and exquisite music.
Maqueque are: Jane Bunnett, soprano saxophone & flute; Joanna Tendai Majoko, vocals; Mary Paz, congas & vocals; Dánae Olano, piano; Tailin Marrero, acoustic & electric bass; Yissy García, drums. Band-leader Bunnett, from Canada is a five-time Juno Award winner, and three-time Grammy nominee. An internationally acclaimed musician, Bunnett is known for her creative integrity, improvisational daring, and courageous artistry.
*Earshot Jazz COVID-19 Policy: Earshot recommends that all ticket holders be vaccinated. Policy subject to change. Full COVID policy here.
Jane Bunnett and Maqueque (l-r) Dánae Olano, Jane Bunnett, Joanna Tendai Majoko, Yissy García, Tailin Marrero Zamora, MaryPaz Fernández, Jane Bunnett. Photo courtesy of Lauren Deutsch.
Celebrating Mary Lou Williams, An Evening of Live Performance and Film 10/25
Join us for this performance on Wednesday, October 25 at 7:30 pm PDT at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. This event is in-person*. Tickets are $12-38.
Learn more about this performance co-presented with Langston.
Seattle pianist Ann Reynolds along with producer and director Kay D. Ray present an evening of music and film devoted to the music of much-loved and pioneering pianist. The live performances will be interspersed with archival film interview clips and rare performance footage of Mary Lou Williams to tell the story.
Mary Lou Williams. Williams is considered one of the greatest arrangers, composers, and musicians across time. Born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1910, Williams learned piano from her mother at the age of four. She enjoyed the instrument and played numerous styles including ragtime, boogie-woogie, blues, as well as popular and classical styles. Influenced by Jelly Roll Morton, Earl Hines, and Fats Waller, she developed a unique sound that entranced countless people. She was extremely talented at not only interpreting the work of other artists but also incorporating melodies, harmonies, and counter-rhythms. While she found difficulties in navigating a jazz world unaccustomed to a woman instrumentalist with such undeniable talents, she forged ahead eventually gaining a place in the jazz world and respect from many fellow-musicians. Several important bandleaders such as Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington, asked Williams to arrange music for them. Highly adept at creating her own original compositions, in 1946 the New York Philharmonic Orchestra performed her composition “Zodiac Suite.” In time, Williams became an influential figure in the jazz wold. She mentored many up and coming musicians including Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, and Thelonious Monk. In 1972 Williams received a Guggenheim Fellowship and in 1977 she was named an artist-in-residence at Duke University, where she led the jazz orchestra and taught jazz history.
The musicians who will be performing tonight include, Alex Guilbert (piano), Nelda Swiggett (piano), Heather Chriscaden (bass), Maria Wulf,(drums), Ann Reynolds (piano), Kent Stevenson (piano), Terry Morgan (bass), Freddy Fuego Gonzalez (flute/trombone), and Jason Turner (vocals). Ann Reynolds is a talented pianist and composer who leads several local ensembles including the Afro-Cuban project Clave Gringa and Instrumental Ladies of Jazz. Reynolds’ latest album, Inspired by Women Composers, includes an original piece inspired by Mary Lou Williams. Kay D. Ray has a history of filmmaking in Seattle honoring women in Jazz which includes the award winning films “Lady Be Good: Instrumental Women in Jazz,” “In Her Hands: Key Changes in Jazz,” and “Ernestine Anderson: There Will Never Be Another You.”
Catch this same performance again on Bainbridge Island, November 1, as part of the BIMA Within Earshot series. These performances are sponsored in part by smART Ventures through Seattle Office of Arts and Culture and 4Culture.
*Earshot Jazz COVID-19 Policy: Earshot recommends that all ticket holders be vaccinated. Policy subject to change. Full COVID policy here.
Mary Lou Williams photo by William P. Gottlieb
Kassa Overall 10/26
Join us for this performance on Thursday, October 26 at 7:30 pm PDT at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. This event is in-person*. Tickets are $12-38.
Learn more about Kassa Overall's performance co-presented with Langston.
Grammy-nominated musician, emcee, singer, producer and drummer Kassa Overall melds avant-garde experimentation with hip-hop production techniques to tilt the nexus of jazz and rap in unmapped directions. Establishing himself as a rhythmic innovator and visionary poet, Overall used his voice to address the injustices of the carceral system, the pharmaceutical industry, and anti-black racism, while wrangling with the perils of his own mental illness, on his first two albums—Go Get Ice Cream and Listen to Jazz, and I Think I’m Good.
On his latest release, Animals (2023 Warp Records), Overall explores the paradoxes of his life as an entertainer and as a black man in America. Overall balances Roland 808s against avant-garde drumming in the vein of his mentors Elvin Jones and Billy Hart, the latter of whom he studied with at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Collaborators on the album include Danny Brown, Wiki, Lil B, Shabazz Palaces, Nick Hakim, Laura Mvula, Francis and the Lights, and jazz stars like Theo Croker and Vijay Iyer. For this performance ensemble members include Tomoki Sanders (Saxophone), Bendji Allonce (percussion), and Ian Finkelstein (keys).
Catch Kassa Overall twice at the Earshot Jazz. Later on Friday October 27, Overall will launch a DJ set at The Royal Room.
“One of modern jazz music’s most audacious futurists.” –Pitchfork
*Earshot Jazz COVID-19 Policy: Earshot recommends that all ticket holders be vaccinated. Policy subject to change. Full COVID policy here.
Kassa Overall photo by Patrick OBrien Smith
Harriet Tubman 10/27
Join us for this performance on Friday, October 27 at 8:00 pm PDT at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. This event is in-person*. Tickets are $12-38.
Learn more about Harriet Tubman's performance co-presented with Langston.
Named after the heroic African-American slave who risked her life to escape from slavery and help more than 300 others to do the same, the band Harriet Tubman is deeply inspired by the ideals of freedom. The three musicians who formed Harriett Tubman drummer J.T. Lewis, guitarist Brandon Ross and bassist Melvin Gibbs, create a fusion of soul, rock, jazz, and blues which examines the depths of these genres for their own unique liberated musical expression. The band counts Jimi Hendrix, Ornette Coleman, and Parliment-Funkadelic as contributors to its musical DNA. Guitarist and singer Brandon Ross, bassist Melvin Gibbs, and Drummer JT Lewis have collaborated with artists as diverse as Cassandra Wilson, Living Colour, Lou Reed, Herbie Hancock, Henry Threadgill, Sting, Arrested Development, the Rollins Band, David Murray and Meshell Ndegeocello. Their own sound is pure and liberated musical expression—a deep and soulful meditation on the concept of freedom.
Integrating sampling and other digital methods into a compelling genre-defying sound, Harriet Tubman embraces the pioneering spirit of jazz. Re-contextualizing musical technology to create innovative compositions is an important part of the African-American tradition, and the trio sees Harriet Tubman as its contribution to that tradition. In essence, “Harriet Tubman” makes music that is a fusion of soul, rock, jazz, blues, and avant-garde.
The band notes, “We feel that our choice to perform Open Music has a value and relevance that connects with a re-awakening, a new search for revived meaning that we see and experience wherever and whenever we perform. Our music does not dictate through genre, or demographic, how one ‘should’ relate to it.” Not just musical philosophers, Lewis, Ross, and Gibbs are hugely talented musicians.
The bands outstanding 2017 release Araminta (Sunnyside), was one of the most celebrated recordings of that year. Their new recording The Terror End of Beauty on Sunnyside and Early Future Records (vinyl only), has already been met with wide critical praise from Rolling Stone Magazine, The Wire (UK), and DownBeat Magazine.
Their performance at the Earshot Jazz Festival, was cited as the Number 1 best live concert in 2018 by NPR jazz critic Nate Chinen.
*Earshot Jazz COVID-19 Policy: Earshot recommends that all ticket holders be vaccinated. Policy subject to change. Full COVID policy here.
Harriet Tubman featuring l-r Brandon Ross, J T Lewis, and Melvin Gibbs, photo courtesy of M M Music Agency
Georgia Anne Muldrow 10/28
Join us for this performance on Saturday, October 28 at 8:00 pm PDT at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. This event is in-person*. Tickets are $20-45.
Learn more about Georgia Anne Muldrow's performance co-presented with Langston.
Powerful and deeply moving multi- instrumentalist Georgia Anne Muldrow hails from a family steeped in jazz. Her father, Ronald Muldrow, played alongside Eddie Harris while her mother, Rickie Byars, performed as lead singer of Roland Hanna’s New York Jazz Quartet and Pharoah Sanders Ensemble. Eager to follow the family tradition, Georgia Anne Muldrow has collaborated with Robert Glasper, Adrian Younge, Ambrose Akinmursire, Justin Brown’s Nyeusi, and Keyon Harrold among others. Compelled to push the boundaries of jazz, Muldrow’s artistry is known for its adventurous approach—she mixes elements of R&B, jazz, funk, and rap to create music that is often cited as being otherworldly. Nominated in 2020 for the Best Urban Contemporary Album Grammy for her album Overload, Muldrow explains “music is my discipline. It’s my way of meditating, it’s my way of thanking God, it’s my way of communicating… It’s my way of life.”
“Over the years, this gifted Los Angeles singer-producer-multi-instrumentalist has collaborated with Erykah Badu, Sa-Ra Creative Partners and Madlib, so it’s no surprise that her latest full-length is packed full of unflappable funk.” – Rolling Stone
*Earshot Jazz COVID-19 Policy: Earshot recommends that all ticket holders be vaccinated. Policy subject to change. Full COVID policy here.
Georgia Anne Muldrow photo courtesy of M M Music Agency
Support for the 2023 Earshot Jazz Festival provided by
