une is jazz month in New York. Still. The recent collapse of the JVC Jazz Festival may have created a different impression among casual observers — and make no mistake, its absence is being felt. But there’s a reassuring abundance in the clubs right about now. And there are a handful of artist-run grassroots events, the newest of which is the Bloom Festival, a monthlong series that started at the Tea Lounge in Brooklyn last week.
The Bloom Festival (not to be confused with an identically titled electronic-music convocation in Britain) borrows its name from the soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom, who made a featured appearance under its auspices on Friday. Her intently exploratory mind-set presents one ideal for the monthlong series; her sex presents another. The phrase “women in jazz” is nowhere to be found in Bloom Festival promotional materials, but it’s certainly no accident that each of its headliners is female.
On Thursday night the festival’s kickoff slot fell to Allison Miller, an assertive drummer with an active hand in rock as well as jazz. Leading a quartet called Boom Tic Boom, Ms. Miller leaned toward the post-bop end of the spectrum, with distinct if indirect echoes of Ornette Coleman’s free-form blues vernacular.
The Bloom Festival (not to be confused with an identically titled electronic-music convocation in Britain) borrows its name from the soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom, who made a featured appearance under its auspices on Friday. Her intently exploratory mind-set presents one ideal for the monthlong series; her sex presents another. The phrase “women in jazz” is nowhere to be found in Bloom Festival promotional materials, but it’s certainly no accident that each of its headliners is female.
On Thursday night the festival’s kickoff slot fell to Allison Miller, an assertive drummer with an active hand in rock as well as jazz. Leading a quartet called Boom Tic Boom, Ms. Miller leaned toward the post-bop end of the spectrum, with distinct if indirect echoes of Ornette Coleman’s free-form blues vernacular.
