Apparently Earshot was a success.
At a length of three weeks, featuring performances that could be painfully challenging at times, held in austere settings like museums, former churches and auditoriums, the Earshot Jazz festival has at times felt more like a symposium than a festival.
The earnest listener of Seattle’s marquee jazz event needs patience, determination and a commitment of time — not to mention more than a tank-full of gas to get to the venues which are spread over downtown Seattle, Ballard, the Central District and the Eastside. A trained, malleable ear comes in handy, too.
This year, Earshot has again proved to be education as much as entertainment, and a sizable risk, as true art can sometimes be. Heading into its third and last week — on the schedule is a jazz opera, plus a solo performance Toumani Diabate, by the planet’s greatest living player of the kora, a West African harp — the event has so far been nothing if unpredictable. Those willing to see the schedule through have so far been generously rewarded.
Avant Music News 