Every year I’m surprised by the abundance of jazz concerts in early
April. This time, Earshot Jazz brackets this busy weekend with
its ongoing spring series: Reedman Ken Vandermark joins the
Ab Baars Trio (Fri April 3, Seattle Asian Art Museum, 8 pm,
$13/$15) followed by Steve Coleman and Five Elements (Sun April
5, Triple Door, 7:30 pm, $18/$20).
“I’m interested in interacting with other musics,” Vandermark told
me last spring before his duo gig with Paal Nilssen-Love. With
the Ab Baars Trio, Vandermark is a sympathetic seeker, embracing the
Dutch trio’s investigation of mannerist choral music, Stravinsky,
and titan Albert Ayler, Vandermark’s longtime hero. Recorded just
after a European tour with Baars, Goofy June Bug (Stichting WIG) finds Vandermark deftly shaping his hard-hitting tenor
sax tone into slinky tunes that range from recasting a fragment of
Stravinsky’s Agon to canonic Ayler-esque squeals in the aptly
titled “Then He Whirled About.” I’m taken with “Prince on Venosa,”
Baars’s tribute to Don Carlo Gesualdo (1566–1613); together,
Baars and Vandermark blend beautifully in high, sirenlike tones.
I’m enchanted by Steve Coleman and Five Elements: Coleman transforms
Dixieland “hot jazz” polyphony into clear strands that simultaneously
accommodate solos, pocket soliloquies, and elegantly composed
long-limbed melodies. Central to this group’s compelling sound is
vocalist Jen Shyu, who has a militantly equal—not
dominant—place in the sound.
To warm up for the weekend, I’m catching the unfortunately
acronymed WACO (Thurs April 2, City Hall, noon, free). Short for
Washington Composers Orchestra, this swaggering, 15-piece West Coast
equivalent of the New York Composers Orchestra features Wayne
Horvitz, Robin Holcomb, and drummer Byron Vannoy as well as bassist
and recent Earshot Hall of Fame inductee Phil Sparks bolstering
top-notch brass and reed sections.
Later that night, try the U-District Jazz Walk (Thurs April
2, various venues, 6 pm–midnight, free) where the Jason Parker
Quartet, Motel 5, Melodius Thunk, the Owcharuk
5 (who serve up “punk-jazz” versions of Ukrainian folk tunes), and
others perform at cafes and pubs along the Ave. In nearby Wallingford,
the Suffering Fuckheads hold court (Thurs April 2, SeaMonster
Lounge, 10 pm, free). Percolating chord-comping by Hammond organist Ron
Weinstein anchors this brash, jazz-rock outfit that declare on their
MySpace page that “they are not going to play your wedding, but they
might do your divorce.”
Also, two splendid vocalists, Carolyn Graye (Fri April 3,
Hiroshi’s, 7:30 pm, free) and Kendra Shank (Tues–Wed April
7–8, Jazz Alley, 7:30 pm, $22.50), tread where few singers go.
Both burnish unusual tune selection with spot-on phrasing, scatting,
and occasional avant vocal gymnastics. Shank, who left Seattle in the
late 1980s, returns with a new disc, Mosaic (Challenge).
Finally, don’t miss Garrett Fisher’s opera The Passion
of Saint Thomas More (Mon April 6, St. Mark’s Cathedral, 7 pm,
free). An abstract meditation on More’s last days in 1535, Fisher’s
unusual instrumental combinations (English horn, guitar, dumbek,
and harmonium) and icy vocal lines evoke a majestic desolation. 
