Big Ears 2023 — Living Inside the Music

 

“This is the best music festival in America.”  (John Zorn at the Tennessee Theatre)

“There’s nothing else like Big Ears in America.”  (Stephen O’Malley at Knoxville Visitor’s Center)

“People are such enthusiastic listeners at this festival. It’s kind of aggressive and scary.”

(Arooj Aftab at The Point)

Big Ears and the Psychogeography of Downtown Knoxville

During the lead up to the 2023 edition of the festival, promotion abounded for “Ten Years of Big Ears.” This phrasing, rather than“Tenth Anniversary,” was a reminder that the festival took three years off after its first two incarnations in 2009 and 2010, and during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. The precariousness of festivals, and live music in general, put many of us in a reflective state, and we swapped reminiscences of favorite moments from Big Ears past. The last few weeks of email updates and downtown banners advertising “Ten Years” couldn’t help but magnify those reflections.

As much as recalling past performances, it’s been interesting to consider how much downtown Knoxville changed in the 14 years since Big Ears launched, and how that’s affected the festival-going experience. Psychogeography has always been an interesting, if alternately fun and frustrating, part of the Big Ears weekend, and it played a bigger role than ever this year. Big Ears grows larger each year, and it’s difficult to imagine the expansion of the festival without the expansion of downtown. Where would all those visitors sleep and eat without the hotels and restaurants that have opened in the last decade? More venues have opened, but even more acts have been added each year, which means more overlapping performances. This obviously affects how one navigates the weekend, including decisions such as which acts to prioritize, how long one might stay at a performance, when and where to eat, and how many listening experiences one can absorb over four days. With the addition of crowds generated by the Dogwood Arts Chalk Walk, The Eagles concert, and a marathon, along with rain and unusually strong winds, Big Ears attendees had a lot of decisions to make, but had to be flexible and open to a change of plans.

The inaugural 2009 festival took place the first weekend of February, and though Blue Cats in the Old City to The Bijou was the longest walk one had to make, it was often a cold walk. Temperatures dropped into the 20s that first night and it was windy, though not nearly as windy as this past Saturday, which resulted in the cancellation of the street parade and rescheduling the street party to Sunday. I never made it over to the Civic Auditorium, a new venue addition this year. I realize it isn’t that far of a walk and trolleys were running, but I had some sort of mental hurdle about heading there. Anecdotal and social media evidence show I was not alone in this, it just seems far away. But the acoustics were reportedly great, the concerts there well-placed and well-attended, so I’ll make a point to visit next year.

 

Perfect Lives At Big Ears

It’s always exciting to see outdoor performances at Big Ears, both for the creative use of public space and how they attract and engage passersby. Surely one of the most inspired uses of downtown as a performance space since the 24-Hour Nuclear War event was Varispeed Collective’s adaptation of Robert Ashley’s television opera Perfect Lives. Its seven half-hour parts were staged in site-specific locations throughout downtown every two hours from 11:00 AM to 11:00 PM: “The Park” at Krutch Park; “The Bank” across the street from U.S. Bank outside the East Tennessee History Center; “The Supermarket” at Mast General Store; “The Church” at The Point; “The Backyard” in that rarest of spaces, a downtown backyard; “The Living Room” in some brave soul’s loft living room; and “The Bar” at Jig and Reel.

I missed “The Church,” “The Backyard” and “The Living Room, but the four performances I attended were as fun and stimulating as anything I saw all weekend. There’s a lot going on throughout Perfect Lives, and though I’ve listened to Ashley’s original recording of it a few times, and read the summary Varispeed provided, I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on narratively, and have a tenuous grasp on what it might be getting at philosophically. That didn’t matter much when absorbing the piece live, as a near overwhelming flood of imagery and ideas is conveyed through Ashley’s monologues, which bring to mind modernist American poets like E.E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams and Robert Creeley. But funnier.
Just as Matmos did when they took on the intimidating task of interpreting parts of Ashley’s opera at Big Ears 2017, Varispeed did an excellent job of translating Perfect Lives into a language of their own. Having multiple sing-readers of the text was a plus, some members hewing close to Ashley’s deadpan delivery, others opting for more animated, actorly utterances.

Larger variations were apparent in the genre-hopping musical arrangements, the original work’s minimal keyboards and percussion augmented with accordion, brass, drums, guitars, woodwinds, and even a saxophone. Part of the appeal of the staging was the surprise and, more often than not, delight of spectators who happened upon the performance. Playing music in Krutch Park inevitably invites unplanned accompaniment from the beeping of a truck backing up, musicians on Market Square or car horns, and performers and audience alike rolled with it. Mast General Store staff and customers were good sports as the ensemble strolled through the aisles, applauding and cheering as enthusiastically as the small crowd that had assembled for the performance.

 

Repeat Performances

As Lonnie Holley has demonstrated on albums and in a live context over the last decade, his unique singing style and writing is fluid enough to fit within many contexts, provided his musical partners are game to flow with him. This was proven again in multiple settings this year, including a quasi-gospel backing by Mourning [A] BLKstar, a surprise show with a pickup band at UT Downtown Gallery and an “All Star” band at Mill and Mine. This latter lived up to the billing, with Brendan Canty on drums, Brandon James Lewis on saxophone, Ben Sollee on cello, Shahzad Ismaily on bass and Moog, and other ringers that offered up a jazzy suite that seemed to build and build throughout its duration.

Ismaily also appeared with pianist Vijay Iyer and vocalist Arooj Aftab at the Tennessee Theatre, performing their recent Love in Exile album. I missed Aftab last year to see who knows what, but Big Ears is increasingly inviting past performers to appear again and that’s a net plus. You’re tired of seeing Marc Ribot and Bill Frisell? Get out. The Love in Exile trio at the Tennessee Theatre was exquisite, the type of music that provides the aesthetic arrest James Joyce considered to be the purpose of art, a suspension of reality that allows one to experience the sublime. That might be laying it on thick, but hearing Aftab and Ismaily with harpist Maeve Gilchrist the following night at The Point makes me want to double down. I’d be quite content to live inside this music for longer than might be sane or safe.

I could live inside Bill Orcutt’s music, too, though I’d probably be driven insane much faster. The intricate repeating patterns of his guitar quartet, circling around and weaving in and out of each other, is addictive. Overdubbing all the parts himself on the album, Orcutt invited guitar phenoms Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza and Shane Parish to accompany him in live settings. They were seated during their show at The Standard, which means a lot of us there couldn’t see them very well. I did have a clear path through the forest of tall dudes to view Eisenberg, and it was a delight to watch her perform these hyperactive pieces. It was also an interesting reminder of how visuals affect listening. I was watching her, so not surprisingly my ears fixated more closely on her playing. Ditto Chris Corsano during his duo with Orcutt at Jackson Terminal. Which is fine, because he’s an incredibly kinetic drummer and fun if a little exhausting to watch. Corsano/Orcutt was another case of “Oh I’ve seen these guys a few times but I guess I’ll go check them out” ending up being one of the best experiences I had all weekend. The musicians seemed to be having a ball, Orcutt’s mumbling vocalese eventually turning into howls of delight, the place was packed and the crowd was really into it.

Jake Xerxes Fussell was an excellent choice for a four night residency at Jig and Reel. His repertoire of folk songs is wide, but even when repeating songs on multiple nights, his light touch and guitar tone underscoring his strong vocals remained engaging. This was most evident on “Have You Ever Seen Peaches Growing on a Sweet Potato Vine,” which he performed each night with a different guest. Steve Gunn’s style seems custom made for that song, and on the final night saxophonist James Brandon Lewis sat in to add melodious accompaniment that shifted the tune from an upbeat foot stomper to a more contemplative mode.

Lewis was all over the festival, and his trio set with bassist Josh Werner and drummer Chad Taylor hit the sweet spot between tuneful post-bop and the more frenzied edges of contemporary jazz. It was entirely accessible to listeners who don’t lean into free jazz, but Lewis’s post-Coltrane soloing was bold and loose. The Sun Ra Arkestra also fits into this category, covering jazz history from the big band days to the more experimental and free jazz forms they helped invent. They always deliver a crowd-pleasing set, even winning over people who are skeptical of electric saxophones and cosmic-centric recitations.

Talking Big Ears

Big Ears is of course more than music, and in addition to a film series, this year it expanded the talks and interviews. Essentially a PowerPoint presentation and lecture, David Byrne’s “Reasons to be Cheerful” was a bit of an odd duck in the Tennessee Theatre, having the feel of a conference motivational talk. Still, it’s hard to argue with the message Byrne and guests Candy Carver and Cathy Jennings were delivering, especially as realistic, positive approaches to easing homelessness and traffic fatalities were presented. Byrne’s statement on how humans are hardwired to be attracted to negative news as to be guard for potential threats, and how platforms on the internet are designed to exploit this, was received knowingly and appreciatively by the packed house. The entire presentation was an invitation to turn our focus from fixating on problems to identifying and implementing solutions in a manageable and realistic way. That morning, sitting in the dark together, it didn’t seem like too big an ask.

The always excellent Essential Tremors podcast was in town to conduct a series of interviews, based around the idea of asking guests to pick three songs that have shaped their thinking about and approach to music. Stephen O’Malley gave lengthy, thoughtful responses to prompts about his three picks, combining personal narrative with broader thoughts about such topics as the music business, ethics, classical music, American hardcore, metal and Big Ears itself.
Geoff Dyer offered a reading from his 1991 book But Beautiful, a cult favorite among jazzbos and literati alike. It’s a unique book, ostensibly a meditation on jazz music through creative imaginings of musicians’ lives that is also something of an existential meditation on life itself. Dyer’s skillful use of language in the book has been likened to playing jazz, and hearing it read aloud highlighted how close to poetry his prose is. Variego 3, a Knoxville-based Jimmy Giuffre-inspired trio, played between Dyer’s chapter breaks, an inspired choice that broke up the potential monotony of a book reading with jazz of an airy nature.

 

Big Ears 2023: Too middlebrow or bringing the posi-vibes we need right now?

So this year’s Big Ears was a blast, as usual. But as we gathered in the Mill and Mine courtyard closing night, mingled with the sounds of Marc Ribot Y Los Cubanos Postizos were a few comments that this year’s lineup seemed a bit middlebrow, that there wasn’t enough challenging or provocative music that hadn’t long since received the approval of the New Yorker or New York Times. This kind of I-prefer-their-earlier-work chatter has occurred since the second iteration of the festival (and I contributed to it!), but I had to admit it had been a while since I experienced anything like audience members exiting Keiji Haino or Nazorania’s sets in 2014, ANGRY at noise that didn’t even scan to them as music. Will Big Ears ever again host a concert as loud as 2016’s legendary Sunn O))) concert at the Tennessee Theatre, which shook seats in the back rows and triggered major anxiety and even tears in some attendees?

Has there since been anything as irreverently ribald as Matmos’s video the first year, a piece that saw their show moved from the (inadvertently aptly named) Square Room? Whither Wolf Eyes and their ilk? The only remotely uncomfortable show I saw this year was local guitarist Eric Lee’s monologue-heavy set at Pilot Light, which is provocative by design, and less effective for that. Locals who’ve heard him perform many times were understandably unfazed, but even out-of-towners seemed more nonplussed or concerned for him than upset.

Maybe Big Ears has experienced a vibe shift over the years, with less noise and chaos in favor of free community events, an uptick in dance parties and all around good times. I know I had a good time when I met up with a group of friends at bluegrass phenom Sienna Hull’s show, which was never on any iteration of my ever-changing schedule. It’s always a pleasure to hear a Nigerian wedding band live, and Etran de L’Air’s show was the most joyous I attended. No surprise, as those bands exist to play social music. Many people danced in their seats and shouted out during some jazz sets at the tightly packed Bijou, a marked contrast from the polite reverence of audiences a decade or so ago.

Overall, though, it might just be a function of Big Ears audiences and perhaps the culture at large becoming more accepting of the type of acts programmed at the festival. I talked to several first time attendees who seemed intimidated by Big Ears in the past, drawn in this year seemingly because of the civic institutional juggernaut it’s become. Usually they stay in their musical comfort zones but were game to check out various acts, some they liked, some they didn’t. More mainstream music fans who made fun of what they perceived as the festival’s pretentiousness in the past have grown to become some of its most ardent champions, and it’s not just because the weekend has opened up to include bluegrass, legacy jazz musicians and pop-charting singer-songwriters. That those acts are there now is a bonus, but it doesn’t alter the fact that the majority of what you can hear at any given moment is fairly non-traditional.
It’s disingenuous to claim John Zorn pieces such as Cobra or his trio with drummer Dave Lombardo and bassist Trevor Dunn aren’t challenging to most listeners. But we also have to acknowledge that Zorn, who celebrated his 70th birthday during this year’s festival, is canon, one of America’s most celebrated living composers. St. John’s old-fashioned sacred space hosted some of the weekend’s most demanding compositions for performer and audience alike.

The weekend offered numerous opportunities to hear jazz from long in the game artists like William Parker, David Murray and Wadada Leo Smith. None of these musicians are playing it safe, and are engaging with a form of music that most jazz critics and audiences looked askance about half a century ago. But they are luminaries now, respected elders who have inspired several younger generations, including East Tennesseean Zoh Amba, whose fiery playing is also drawing rave reviews.

So was it the case that this year’s Big Ears was a little too tasteful overall, and could do with the return of some ear and earth-shaking provocations? Or, as Arooj Aftab suggested, has the intensity of the listeners become more frightening than the music itself? Do we want a break from the abstruse and grim after the past few years? Maybe a bit of all of the above, but as Big Ears enters its pre-pubescence and the grimness shows little sign of waning (especially in Tennessee), it might be a good time for the festival, and its audience, to become a little more feral and indulge in a little more unruliness.