On average, how much music do you listen to in a day? Even if you work from home, have a job that allows you to wear earbuds, are retired or otherwise unemployed, most people probably don’t engage with more than a few hours of active music listening a day.
Considering this, a music festival seems a fairly unusual thing, creating an environment for thousands of strangers to come together with the primary goal of attentively listening to music all day for several days in a row. The scope and programming of larger, popular music festivals skew toward pop, rock, hip-hop and dance music that is generally high-energy, upbeat, and pairs well with alcohol and other substances that might aid in sustaining an elevated mood and give oneself over to music for 12 hours or more a day.
The variety of acts that perform at Big Ears each year certainly allows one to curate this type of experience, but one of the things that makes this festival so unique and meaningful to so many musicians and attendees who come from around the world is the programming of music that demands more concentrated, active listening. Or as past festival performer and radical composer Pauline Oliveros defined it, Deep Listening. Of course one can “deep” listen to anything, her point was democratic and the opposite of pretentious, but most people will concede that the intention and execution of Charles Curtis’ three-hour solo cello concert exploring the instrument’s pitches and melodies tuned in just intonation played over pre-recorded drones is different than that of a Jon Batiste concert, and they ask a different kind of engagement with the music.
Ideally, a Big Ears attendee would hear all types of music over four days, or even in just one: catching a set by one of the most exciting singer-songwriters of the moment, then getting lost in medieval vocal music before attending an electronic dance party and still hearing a late night set from some of the greatest jazz musicians who ever lived. At Big Ears you can hear all the things, and if four days of concentrated engagement with music is unnatural, at Big Ears it might be even more so.
This is all rather obvious, I suppose, but I hadn’t thought about it too intently until Will Oldham, performing as Bonnie “Prince” Billy, spoke about music’s importance during his career-spanning Saturday night set at the Tennessee Theatre. Toward the end of his show, Oldham remarked that for years he thought about music as a luxury, before realizing it’s actually a necessity. It is while listening to music that we are most ourselves, at our most vulnerable. (This is why, Oldham went on to explain, streaming services are so terrible. They have us at their mercy because they have us at our most vulnerable, and can, and do, treat us however they wish.)
This struck me as absolutely true, even for people who don’t attend music festivals, who might just listen to the radio or music that’s on television or at the gas pump or at church or any of the other many places it surrounds us. There’s a reason the last song of the prom remains memorable, why the song selection for the first wedding dance is so important, why people are so deliberate about what hymns they choose for a loved one’s funeral. There’s something about music that allows us to let our guard down and helps us show ourselves to the world. There are surely innumerable scientific queries into why this should be, studies that show parts of the brain activated when hearing music, but anecdotal evidence and your own good sense tell you music occupies a rarified space in all cultures and serves unique functions in all our lives.
Big Ears allows a sustained engagement with as many varieties of music as any North American music festival. Its performers and attendees are well aware of this and approach the weekend with an almost reverential attitude. Oldham, keenly tuned in to a festival’s unnatural attributes, chose to close his set with an audience participation sing-along based on shape note singing, an audible reminder we were all sharing space with strangers from around the world, creating, for a short time, a community outside the ones we left to be there that night. Big Ears attendees, even Knoxvillians, are part of a temporary community brought together for a specific purpose that from the outside might seem solely entertainment-based if not hedonistic, but in reality is always so much more.
Some Things I Heard and Saw During Big Ears 2024
Let’s go ahead and talk about Andre 3000. The big question since his jazzy flute improv album New Blue Sun came out last November is: If this album wasn’t made by one of the most famous rappers in the world, would that many people care about it? Would anyone else be able to pack five concerts of improv flute music over the course of four days? The answer is, Of course not. But who cares if people like the music? If you care about spiritual jazz or free jazz or improv or experimental music, you should be glad all of that has an ambassador like 3000. He’s getting people who would never consider this music to listen, and maybe do a deeper dive into past masters. Plus, his backing band are certainly not novices with this music. Also consider that this stuff isn’t that left field for a lot of heads plugged into the jam band circuit, which crosses over with Outkast fans. (Though to be fair, almost everything crosses over with Outkast fans.). There have always been a few jam bands at festivals that get a little further out, indulge in their “Drums/Space” portion of the show.
I saw 3000’s first concert of the festival, Thursday night at St. John’s Cathedral. He and his band made excellent use of that space, with the light show an integral part of the experience. The church was small enough for the lighting to be immersive, helping the audience reach the places he wanted them to go. The music was fairly reminiscent of the mellower end of ‘70s-era Miles Davis albums like Live-Evil or Get Up With It, his band obviously well-versed in Miles’s electronic era. Andre 3000 was committed to creating a trance-like vibe, switching flutes throughout, playing bird calls, at times on his knees hooting at the sky. Toward the end, he encouraged the audience to shout out what they felt as the band raised the volume and increased the velocity of the music. It was a blast.
One of the more unexpectedly gratifying aspects of Big Ears is meeting and talking to strangers, in line or sitting next to them waiting for a show to start, or just randomly on the street or in a bar. It’s interesting to chat with those working the festival, too, to get their thoughts and experiences. The security team was brought up from Atlanta, and some of them had THOUGHTS about 3000. The consensus seemed to be that The Point was a pretty good gig as venues go, and ducking in to see 3000’s set now and then was more amusing than anything. “I thought, What’s he doing, on the ground grunting like an ape?” one guard laughed. “And then he had the audience making noises and some of them sounded just like birds. It was pretty cool, they didn’t have instruments like he did, but some of them sounded just like birds.”
Big Ears offers the opportunity for musicians who have never played together, or maybe even met, to participate in what could be a once in a lifetime collaboration. Sometimes these collabs end up being like chocolate with peanut butter, sometimes cigarettes with ice cream. John Paul Jones and Thurston Moore… who knows?
They were 45 minutes late getting started, meaning some people stood in line an hour and a half to see them by the time doors opened. Some of these same people left within 15 minutes of the set starting. An hour or so later, as they wrapped up, there were maybe 200 people left out of the 1000 or so that crowded in earlier. I don’t know if most people were expecting them to swap songs from Led Zeppelin and Sonic Youth or what, but they clearly weren’t expecting the old fashioned, full-on noisy improv set they got. Moore has made this his side hustle for decades, with an untold number of live sets and recordings in which he’s tried to get every sound as humanly and technologically possible out of electric guitar, pedals and amps. I have no idea how often Jones has done this kind of thing, but he’s John Paul Jones, he can do pretty much anything, and seemed an old pro at avoiding any semblance of song or melody as he summoned vast cascades of noise from his bass and rig. They performed a 45-minutes guitar and bass improv, all raging feedback, drones and plinky-plonking strings, before Jones moved over to a baby grand piano for some free playing, while Moore kept it in a relatively lower register. The end result across an hour was like chocolate and peanut butter and cigarettes and ice cream, the kind of proper overdriven improv set that you hear less and less of at Big Ears. Nothing groundbreaking but great to get lost in for a while.
If you’d told me back in 2022 when experimental laptop composer Claire Rousay performed at Big Ears that she would return in 2024 with a collection of sad autotuned bedroom pop songs I would have said, “What? Hahaha, no way.” Well, I’d have believed the sad part. But the pop song turn was quite unexpected.
Rousay has received more attention than experimental musique concrète/field recording/sound artists usually do, and that’s probably down to how intimate and vulnerable her music sounds. Emo ambient, as some would have it. Her work explores relatable emotional ground for a lot of people at the moment, especially millennials and zoomers. But loneliness, awkwardness, complicated romance, self-doubt and depression are pretty relatable to everyone at times, so it’s already looking to stand the test of time.
For her forthcoming album, Rousay wrote catchy slow-core songs performed on acoustic guitar, while still employing the layered field recordings that make up the building blocks for her tracks. Informed by contemporary pop songs and bedroom pop, if these songs are an unexpected turn in her trajectory, their subject matter and enveloping sound environment are tonally consistent with what came before.
For her live performance at The Point, a church/performance space, she set up a reproduction of her bedroom, the walls surrounding the bed from which she performed covered in posters and photos. Not far into her performance, she walked off stage and outside the venue, while a duo playing lap steel guitar and keyboards continued playing. I thought she had just gone outside for a smoke, and leaving the stage was a bit of an audience troll, not realizing this was part of her set.
I learned what she was doing the next day during her enlightening Ableton demonstration, in which she deconstructed a song from her forthcoming album and explained what she did during her live set the day prior. For her live performances, Rousay records sounds inside and outside the venue, interviews audience members, then drops these recordings into her laptop and builds and manipulates tracks this way. It’s similar to how she composes music, layering field recordings, instruments and samples in Ableton’s Digital Audio Workstation, only in real time, incorporating the changing venues and environments into her work. She also improvises lyrics in addition to the songs she’s written.
The entire performance was oddly and unexpectedly moving, especially in The Point, and the workshop/talk helped me appreciate it more, especially after learning of her evangelical background. She’s one of the most interesting and exciting laptop composers working today, and I hope Big Ears brings her back.
This was one of my most anticipated shows, and talking to people outside the Civic Auditorium before the show, I wasn’t alone. One of the highlights of the weekend, it seemed a little under-attended, and might have worked better at the Tennessee or even Bijou, but those who attended were lucky to be there.
The project takes its name from “Harvest,” the side-long track from saxophonist Pharoah Sanders 1977 album Pharoah. An out-of-print cult classic for years, a recent reissue with accompanying live album has made more people aware of one of the more beautiful albums in Sanders’ catalog. Bassist/musical director Joshua Abrams and original Pharoah guitarist Tisziji Muñoz perform with a rotating band of musicians, depending on where and when the performance takes place. With all the saxophonists in town (not to mention flautist Andre 3000!), it was only natural to wonder who would perform the Sanders role. At first, I was a bit disappointed that Laraaji was the choice, before realizing this was silly of me, as a vocal and dance (and of course, laughter) interpretation of Sanders’ parts was far more unique than having a saxophonist. Side two of the album is steeped in vocals, one of the two tracks, “Love Will Find a Way,” an actual song, so it made even more sense. The entire concert was an interpretation, not a cover, and the hour-long set ran the gamut from mellow ambient jazz to raucous free jazz to meditative spiritual jazz and in the aforementioned song, an R&B swing thing. A lovely way to start a Sunday afternoon of music.
As usual, the festival was stuffed with jazz. A friend I ran into reported that one of his friends who was in town for Big Ears said, “I don’t understand this festival, because I’ve seen three of the greatest drummers in the world and I’d never heard of them before.” That’s the spirit!
There were plenty of big names, too, but one of the delights of Big Ears is musicians who might be well-known in certain circles or even other countries perform here to appreciative and receptive crowds. That seemed to be the case with Cyro Baptista, who is legendary in Brazil and for Latin jazz and fusion fans, and found a whole new audience when he performed at Big Ears a few years back. He returned this year for what was essentially a dance party at Jackson Terminal, summoning energy from a flagging crowd on Sunday night.
One of the most accomplished composers and skilled guitarists of her young generation, Mary Halvorson is always in the company of some of this era’s best jazz musicians, whether leading a group or in support of multiple acts, many of which appeared here over the weekend. The sextet performing works from her album Amaryliss, as well as new material, provided an early festival highlight in a characteristically excellent performance at the Tennessee Theatre Thursday night. Halfway through their set, Halvorson delivered one of the best guitar solos I heard that weekend, fairly short, not at all showy, and just this side of implausible. The song was designed to showcase soloing, every band member delivered, especially Patricia Brennan on vibraphone, and the audience was moved to a rare mid-set standing ovation.
I usually catch a lot of jazz but this year was drawn to the many singer-songwriters in attendance, mostly women, it turns out. I’ve already mentioned Will Oldham, a musician I’ve seen perform probably more times than any other, locals aside. Twice before, both times at two different Harvest Records anniversaries in Asheville, come to think of it, I’ve attended 90-minute or so shows where he performed stripped down sets in which he surveyed his ever-growing song catalog. At Big Ears, he performed such a set, accompanied at various times by musical collaborators from his past. If you follow any artist with a lengthy career, you’ll see how older songs change for you and for them over the years, and how newer songs are obviously more reflective of a more lived-in mind. This contrast between old and new made the show that much more powerful, past fan favorites “New Partner” and “I See a Darkness” delivered in a sorrowful, almost regretful tone, while the newer material has a playfulness and nursery rhyme quality that undercuts the thorny thematic quality. Tears and laughter abounded, and Oldham has a relaxed, engaging stage presence and A+ banter and stories that won over an already partisan crowd.
Speaking of great banter and stories, Kristen Hersh brought a lot of those to her set at The Point. Having read her books and heard her talk at length on the Essential Tremors podcast, that’s what I was hoping for. Her songs have always made it clear that she’s super funny and clever, and this was made all the more apparent in the songs from throughout her career she chose to perform.
Myriam Gendron delivered a spellbinding set to a packed Jig and Reel. It was one of those shows where you’re afraid to move around much for fear of making noise or causing distraction from her hypnotic guitar playing and sonorous voice. She introduced “Farewell” as a song written for a friend who she fell in love with, only he happened to be married, then performed a song written as a lament for her mother. Even her instrumentals were so sad you wanted to give them a cup of soup. Which is to say it was pretty heavy and emotional for a Friday matinee, but that’s what we were here for. She’ll surely be back to play a larger stage, but it felt fortunate to be at this intimate show.
There was a lot of excitement about Beth Orton finally performing at The Bijou. She could have performed solo to ecstatic audience reaction, but the band backing her made the show even more memorable. Everyone got a solo run during the bridge of “Call Me the Breeze,” Shahzad Ismaily’s funky galloping on bass a particular highlight. Orton was in great spirits, an amusing and grateful host for her own concert. From her show I hightailed it over to Digable Planets at the Coliseum, and when leaving that show saw her standing outside. Was she there to get in line early for Herbie Hancock, or did she catch the end of the classic ‘90s hip hop group’s upbeat party set? Or both? Another Big Ears mystery.
For our purposes here, we’ll go ahead and put Laurie Anderson in the songwriters category, though of course what she does with her audio-visual staging is far beyond that. I’d seen her at Big Ears twice before (three times if you count her standing in for the late Tony Conrad during Faust’s performance of Outside the Dream Syndicate), so I thought about skipping her show at the Coliseum on Friday night. But as I said about Carla Bley in a past review, When you have a chance to see Carla Bley, you see Carla Bley. Same with Laurie Anderson. You know what you’re getting, but it’s always great to get it. Her shows are entertaining, thought-provoking, inspiring, sad and troubling, often in the same song, but most importantly they’re communal experiences that remind you we’re not alone in grappling with the complexities of being a human being in the 21st Century. Early on, she invited the audience to scream for 10 seconds while thinking of whatever political, social or personal troubles might be bothering us. It was a cathartic experience, the other side of the coin of Oldham’s call for the shared experience of group singing
My god, Horse Lords are amazing. It was great to see them play for a crowd of about 500 after their last showing here for 200 or so at The Standard. They ably filled up the more cavernous venue with their precision rhythmic assault of two drums and two guitars, with saxophone replacing one guitar for half the set. Repetition is the name of the game, and it’s an almost hallucinatory sound once locked into. At one point they went into a Bo Diddley riff and beat that counts as loosening up for such a tightly wound band.
Unwound was a strange transition to make after the New Age fusion vibe Andre 3000’s set provided, but they woke everyone up right quick. Their sound is so evocative of the entire ‘90s post-hardcore scene that if you closed your eyes during their set, you could be transported from the enormous Mill and Mine to a basement house show.
British buzz band bar italia was less well-attended than expected, but after hearing them live, I wondered if they’re not a particularly specific acquired taste. They manage to create a new sound of their own by melding early ‘80s British post-punk with early ‘90s British indie rock. If you lived through either or both of those earlier waves, it’s an interesting thing to hear a young band well-versed in those sounds come up with a new take on it.
The Messthetics with James Brandon Lewis were an odd bunch. Fugazi’s rhythm section with a pedal-freak shit hot improv guitarist and one of the most versatile and active saxophone players in jazz today. Oh yeah, it absolutely worked, a weird sort of rockist jam band though not at all noodly, and Brendan Canty had the good sense to provide a steady driving beat for Lewis and guitarist Anthony Pirog to play over, without trying to be busy or play “jazz” drums.
An underrated stream of Big Ears programming are the talks and films offered. Yes, it’s ostensibly a music festival, but the many talks and films are built around the musicians in attendance. I always find the talks illuminating, even as they offer a bit of a break from trying to digest music for 10 to 12 hours a day. Not only did Rousay’s Ableton workshop deepen my appreciation of her music, I learned a lot about Digital Audio Workstations. The Nate Chinen-hosted Guitar Radicals panel with Halvorson, Pirog and Yasmin Williams cast new light on performances I witnessed from them. And if you’ve heard Armand Hammer’s Elucid and billy woods rap, why wouldn’t you want to hear them talk, too? The hip-hop duo that delivered a fiery performance at Jackson Terminal on Saturday night were subdued if not a little sleepy when talking about their history and aesthetic process with Marcus J Moore earlier that day.
The always interesting film programming leaned into works about and by attending musicians, as well as Southern stories from underrepresented communities. I only caught one, Black in Appalachia’s Liberated Landscape, a short documentary covering the history of Emancipation Day in Southeastern Ohio. Not only an engaging account of the little known history of a rural Appalachian community of color, it was aesthetically engaging in filmmaker William Isom II choice to use oral history audio over still photographs, rather than traditional talking head interviews. A solid Q&A with Isom followed.
As usual, there was plenty to hear, see and do outside the festival proper. With thousands of people descending on Knoxville for a long weekend, it’s the perfect time for local bands and venues to showcase what goes on in Knoxville on the reg. Pilot Light, a Big Ears venue since the festival’s beginnings in 2009, chose this year to launch their own free independent showcase, What For?, in conjunction with Hologram Electronics and Knoxville Community Media. Dozens of acts played there Thursday through Saturday, not just locals but many out of town bands that call Pilot Light a favorite venue. Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier was joined by Raleigh’s Crowmeat Bob and locals Steve Gigante and Maggie Brannon, old Pilot Light favorite Ed Scchrader’s Music Beat made the trek down from Baltimore, and all the way from Toulouse, France, the indomitable Big Kitty took the stage for his umpteenth appearance.
TEKNOX hosted Friday and Saturday night dance parties at a certain 4th and Gill Victorian-style house turned dance club, and even a sports bar got in on the action, with Blank News and The Blom Shop putting on a free Sunday afternoon showcase at The Local Smokey. And of course downtown venues had their regular non-festival live music shows. Hopefully this trend will continue and we’ll see more and more events popping up in the shadow of Big Ears, much in the way so much great music happens around Austin during South by Southwest. When you have the eyes and ears from so many music lovers from around the world, why wouldn’t you show off a bit?
