The iconic trumpeter Louis Armstrong reportedly gave the best
answer to those wondering what jazz is: “If you have to ask, you’ll
never know.” Despite that rejoinder from one of the founding
fathers of jazz, the question still bedevils fans and musicians.
Charles Mingus denounced the term jazz as another symptom of
segregation, while Duke Ellington brushed it off, regally declaring,
“We stopped using it in 1943.” More than a marketing niche or a vague
category, jazz remains shorthand for the dictionary definition:
“virtuosic, blues-based, rhythmically tensile improvisation invented by
African Americans in the early 20th century.”
Among musicians, jazz has a twin progeny: those who extend the
tradition, such as the Blue Note 7 (Thurs Jan 8, Moore Theatre,
7:30 pm, $37–$44), and those who probe the frontiers of
improvisation, like the performers who grace the festival Is That
Jazz? (Thurs Jan 8, 15, and 22, Chapel Performance Space, 8 pm, $15
suggested donation).
The Blue Note 7 celebrate the 70th anniversary of Blue Note Records,
the legendary label that issued seminal LPs by Sidney Bechet,
Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, John Coltrane, and Lee Morgan as well
as boundary-busting experimental discs, notably Anthony Williams’s
Life Time and Unit Structures by Cecil Taylor. If you own a jazz
disc besides Kind of Blue (Columbia), it was probably released
on Blue Note.
Led by pianist Bill Charlap, the Blue Note 7 boasts a heady
lineup of young players who came of age in the 1990s. Saxophonist
Ravi Coltrane (who, to his credit, bears scant sonic resemblance
to his father, John Coltrane), trumpeter Nicholas Payton,
drummer Lewis Nash, and others revisit music made by legends
from Blue Note’s golden age: Powell, Monk, Morgan, Wayne Shorter, and
Herbie Hancock. Expect breathtaking solos on classic tunes like
“Sidewinder” and “Maiden Voyage.”
Is That Jazz? tries a riskier tack, presenting musicians who
improvise with the implied rhythmic energy of jazz but without a
discernible connection to the blues. The festival kicks off with
Christian Asplund, who returns to Seattle for a solo viola set.
An adept improviser, Asplund makes his instrument sound as fluid as a
violin, alternately keening with high tones and quiet, dusky hymns.
Another ex-Seattle musician, Tom Swafford, adds his violin to
Cipher, a reeds ‘n’ strings quartet with bass clarinetist Greg
Sinibaldi, Jesse Canterbury on clarinet, and one of my favorite
violinists, Tari Nelson-Zagar. Cipher excels at weaving
polyphonic webs: Placid textures can morph into buzzing jungles of
insect pizzicati all swarming around reed-champing chirps and
buzzes. Subsequent dates of Is That Jazz? include Krispin Hartung as
well as the renowned New York guitarist Elliot Sharp.
In late December, I heard the future of improvised music. I was
knocked out by the NOVA Improvised Music Ensemble, a group of
freely improvising high-school kids; I feel dumb typing “kids,” as the
performers were brave and at times brilliant far beyond their years.
They’re planning another show for sometime this spring. When I know the
date, you’ll read about it here. 
