BIG EARS 2022: Zorn, Shabaka, Low, Arooj Aftab, Annette Peacock, Dawn Richard, Nubya Garcia, L'Rain, Damon Locks, Lido Pimienta, more more more!

I ended up skipping both Patti Smith and Kim Gordon because of the huge crowds / long lines. There are so many people here!!

Jeff Parker sold out too.

I liked Arooj too. The violinist was pretty amazing.

Fennesz was great, you could feel it in your organs. We left it a little early to catch the Frisell-led tribute to Ron Miles, where I am now. This is the most straight ahead thing I’ve seen but also maybe the best thing we’ve seen so far.

(at capacity I mean – this Ron Miles tribute is as well)

Friday setlist:

James McVinnie & Tristan Perich
Arooj Aftab
79ers
Sporty’s Brass Band
Lakou Mizik
Kris Davis’ Diatom Ribbons
Patti Smith Band
Pedrito Martinez Group
Fennesz
Mdou Moctar

Should we do an ILM meetup?

(I’m here with Save the Robot)

thursday:
-shabaka hutchings + the knoxville symphony orchestra
-fennesz

friday:
-james mcvinnie + tristan perich
-harriet tubman
-caroline shaw + sō percussion (i got bored and left early)
-andrew cyrille + ambrose akinmusire
-sons of kemet
-mind maintenance (joshua abrams + chad taylor)
-mdou moctar

sons of kemet were so good

Friday

Craig Taborn
Harriet Tubman
Caroline Shaw and so percussion
Last 15 minutes of L’rain
Meredith Monk and John Hollenbeck
Fennesz

Would like to have seen Mdou Moctar but too tired

I appreciate Knoxvillians and UT students’ commitment to pretending they are not cold

I can only imagine it’s a point of local pride. Meanwhile my clothes are progressively less cute and more tactical.

Holy fuck, that Annette Peacock performance was WILD.

Yep!

Saturday setlist:
John Zorn: Meditations on the Tarot
Ches Smith’s We All Break
Ensemble Dal Niente: Alvin Lucier et al
Ensemble Dal Niente: James Tenney
John Zorn: Simulacrum
Andrew Cyrille & Mark Ribot
Jason Moran
Kronos Quartet
John Zorn: The Hermetic Organ
Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society

Saturday

Myra Melford Snowy Egret
Nikki Giovanni book signing
Caroline Shaw and Atacca Quartet
Meredith Monk and Bang on a Can
Sarah Davachi
Natalie Joachim and Spektral Quartet
Annette Peacock

My brother saw Moses Sumney and was ecstatic should have seen that

sarah davachi was transcendent

Seeing her again at noon

Honestly, as excited as I was to see it, I def. didn’t find it transcendent. But I’m contemplating the noon show as well or the Alabaster Deplume. Then Theo Bleckmann and the Frisell Trio.

I’ll be in a maroon hooded coat if anyone wants to say hi.

I’m first in line for the noon show 😜

I caught about a half hour of it. I liked it more for sure. But I love the sound of a Mellotron.

Snuck out to meet Save The Robot at Alabaster DePlume backed by Jamie Branch’s Fly or Die band (which we caught a little if last night). This is a trip.

Saw Branch at a coffee shop just now

waiting for chaos magick to begin. i’m wearing a georgia tech hoodie if any ilxors want to say what up to u mans

I saw Branch and Fly or Die last night, then again with Alabaster DePlume this morning — and then Branch sat right in front of me at the Lonnie Holley show this afternoon (with DePlume sitting in as part of Holley’s band). I love all those kinds of connections and overlaps.

i did not like terry riley's song about weed that bang on a can played. we know you smoke weed dude!!!

Not interested in Riley past Rainbow in Curved Air

Holy shit Electric Masada

So jealous

Sunday playlist

Zorn
Zorn
Evan Ziporyn
Zorn
Zorn
Zorn

Saw an IG story of Marc Ribot in a church playing solo guitar material by Haitian Frantz Casseus looked nice and pleasant enough (if you go for that kind of thing)(i haven't heard Ribot's album of those songs)

I should've Zorned more, too many other things I wanted to check out. I heard the Masada Quartet set was amazing. But man am I glad I saw the electric set, just bonkers.

Sunday
Sarah Davachi
Theo Blackmann and Joe Branciaforte
Bill Frisell
Odean Pope and Immanuel Wilkins (so good)
A Thousand Thoughts with Kronos Quartet
Yves Tumor (a small bit, was disappointed, like the hair metal aesthetic though)

Saturday: was too exhausted to see much
Sarah Davachi, organ
John Zorn, organ

Sunday:
Sarah Davachi
Chaos Magick
Odean Pope & Immanuel Wilkins
Bang On A Can All-Stars

I stopped in for some of that Kronos Quartet "live documentary" because I had time between Ambrose Akinmusire and Zorn, not expecting anything in particular, and thought it was actually a cool and interesting concept, well executed.

Also as local resident I will try to organize at least an ILX happy hour next year. Had it in mind this year but failed to follow through.

Someone said to me that you could do the whole fest over again and see completely different bands and still have a good time and he’s so right

Oh yeah, some of my friends saw almost an entirely different festival from me, and there's a ton of stuff I wish I'd seen.

Absolutely magical weekend. We'd been talking about going to Big Ears for years and finally decided to go for it since we were going to have to do a bit of a road trip to see Sparks on this tour in any case. Really going to try to make it an annual thing from now on. Here's everything I saw:

Annette Peacock
Attacca Quartet
Aurora Nealand & The Royal Roses
Bang on a Can All-Stars: The Pandemic Solos
Bang on a Can All-Stars: Terry Riley's Autodreamographical Tales
Circus No. 9
Electric Appalachia (William Tyler & Mary Lattimore)
Ellen Reid Soundwalk Ensemble
Evan Ziporyn
Eve Maret
James McVinnie
Joseph Branciforte & Theo Bleckmann
Kronos Quartet: Terry Riley's Cadenza on the Night Plain
Kronos Quartet: A Thousand Thoughts
Lakou Mizik
Leyla McCalla
Maeve Gilchrist
Meredith Monk & Bang on a Can All-Stars: Memory Game
Nathalie Joachim
Nathalie Joachim & Spektral Quartet
Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Sarah Davachi
Sparks
Sporty’s Brass Band

Mrs. VTC and I thank you for the Tern Club recommendation, tipsy -- very much our thing! Knoxville is cool.

Oh good, glad you had a good time and liked the Tern Club. Those are good folks, I love that place.

https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/2022/03/29/big-ears-festival-2022-returns-memorable-sights-sounds-knoxville/7167776001/

Atlanta paper also covered the event

https://www.ajc.com/life/arts-culture/big-ears-festival-in-knoxville-brings-edgy-music-to-enthusiastic-crowd/J6BVMH6ZD5C5TAJZEWWFATKPHQ/

The SPIN writeup is funny because there's a lot of grousing about what a comped journalist VIP badge can and cannot get you, to which I'd say, "know your audience" but SPIN doesn't exactly have an audience in 2022

And the entrance and seating coordition was inconsistent venue to venue, at least for us critics. (At one show, my credentials allowed me to access the VIP section; at the next, I’d wait in the VIP line, only to be rerouted to the Premier, and then denied VIP seating. I overhead other people, both press and non-, vent similar frustrations. Overall, not enough to warrant any real complaints — but hopefully 2023 will run a bit more smoothly.)

really bummed i missed all of sunday's zorn :(

overall an outstanding time, though! will be back next year

According to that article with Ashley Capps there were 30% more attendees this year than 2019.

I suspected as much! I wasn't sure if I was just being overly conscious of crowd sizes after the pandemic or if there were actually way more people there

Yeah this was the first year of a complete sell-out. There weren't even any day tickets left.

the ppl were ready

https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/big-ears-festival/recap-arooj-aftab-joe-henry-caroline-shaw/?fbclid=IwAR1G0KOmaKcwkSz-3258FdqAmi6P6EoHFvdOKcBgsLkNpSCCkPHKdzFrWi8

Geoff Himes writeup in Paste

Himes makes big pronouncements-

re Jason Moran--

The 47-year-old pianist, perhaps the best jazz artist of his generation,

And the central paradoxes of our lives—the tension between creation and destruction, between hope and loss—are never fully resolved, and we can always use new approaches to the same old problems.
Every year, the Big Ears Festival provides a useful arena for reconsidering these issues.

Immanuel Wilkins, the alto saxophonist who is justly being hailed as the best young jazz artist of the decade

I'll suggest "a useful arena for reconsidering the central paradoxes of our lives" as the festival's new tagline.