Overlooked is a bit of a loaded word when it comes to the Big Ears Festival. The festival features so much music unlike anything you’ve ever seen, that it’s truly impossible to see it all. For an introvert like myself, FOMO became a relatively new and profoundly constant state-of-mind throughout the weekend. Some of the most talked about performances of the weekend — such as Spiritualized, Mountain Man, the Messthetics, and Dejohnette Coltrane Garrison, only the last of whom I saw — simply conflicted with other performances on my schedule. So having missed some of the most impressive and mind-bending performances, how can I even refer to other acts as overlooked? Big Ears just offers so much.
Big Ears 2019: Making Everything Seem Possible
By Alan Sherrod With minds mostly boggled and ears now feeling oversized, 2019 Big Ears Festival attendees have drifted back to their corners of the world, left to replay in their minds their adrenaline-fueled, four-day romance with music and…
Plan or Improvisation? – Life Lessons From Big Ears 2019
By Eric Dawson Many musicians have talked about how an improvisational approach to music can be instructive on how one might also approach life. Creating in the moment, remaining open to reacting, and responding to unplanned and unexpected occurrences…
The Pilot Light and Big Ears
Let’s talk about the Pilot Light. The Old City club, which will hit its 20th(!) anniversary next year, has hosted a mind-boggling number of acts in its time, many if not most that are right at home in the Big Ears universe, with many festival alumni having performed there before they were later booked for the big show. It’s a natural venue for the festival, along with Big Ears stalwarts the Tennessee Theatre, Bijou and KMA, a venue for the original festival in 2009.
Bigger Than Big Ears: Public Cinema’s Month-Long Installation Program
By Andrew Swafford If Arts Knoxville’s film coverage has been a little quiet over the past couple months, it’s partly due to the fact that Public Cinema has been practically radio silent. After programming extensive slates of three-dimensional cinema…
Big Ears 2019 – Q&A With Nate Wooley – ‘Columbia Icefield’
By Eric Dawson Nate Wooley has been an extremely active trumpet player in the New York jazz and improv world since the turn of the millennium, collaborating with a dazzling array of musicians with a broad range of sounds.…