Earshot Festival Kicks Off with Spirited Jazz Outings for Hendrix, Johnson
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Seattle
The Earshot Jazz Festival was off to an inspiring start Thursday night at the Triple Door, with Pyeng Threadgill putting the Gershwin touch on several Robert Johnson classics.
The young singer-arranger broke down the blues of “Dust My Broom" and “Dead Shrimp," recasting them in the musical phraseology of funk, scat, gospel, operetta and chain-gang moan.
Accompanied by guitar, bass and drums, Threadgill surprised and amazed with every imaginative nuance.
Her own material was just as good. A recent project, “The Butterfly Suite," yielded several songs that were as deliberate in their development of long melodic lines as Billy Strayhorn's work for Duke Ellington.
Punctuated by unexpected harmonies in the bass line, the music breathed with the love of exploration and discovery. Threadgill's respect for the lyrics was evident in her diction, which was as perfect as her pitch. As a singer, she knows the value of the word as well as the note.
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