INAUGURAL: Day of adventurous music will highlight local talents.
Forget Monterey's famous jazz festival by the sea. Next weekend, Spenard will lay claim to its own full day of jazz with homegrown tunes by seven bands over eight hours in a cozy little organic joint just blocks from the bike trail and not so far from the sea.
With good luck and good vibes, Saturday's incipient Spenard Jazz Fest might hold the promise of many festivals to come.
“This was a spur-of-the-moment, 'let's just do it' thing, but I think it will grow," said Yngvil Vatn Guttu, a multi-instrument musician known for her work in theater and on trumpet. “I don't think people know how many good jazz musicians there are in this town."
Like Karl Pasch, principal clarinet player with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra.
“Karl is Alaska's best-kept secret as far as I'm concerned," Guttu said. “I thought he was a classical geek, but he's a great jazz pianist who's going to do some samples and scratching in his set."
Pasch said the pieces he'll do Saturday “are grounded in traditional jazz and funk but mix up some of the rhythms and textures with angular multimeters and electronic sample mashing and effects."
Some of the other bands will incorporate elements of folk, funk, bop, electronic music and more, all original compositions by the musicians onstage.
Guttu wants to see the festival evolve into an annual summer event that bridges local talent with performers from the rest of the world, incorporating blues, hip-hop and experimental music of all kinds.
For now, though, she and the other local musicians who generated the idea of the festival while sipping beers last month just want to play some tunes.
Forget Monterey's famous jazz festival by the sea. Next weekend, Spenard will lay claim to its own full day of jazz with homegrown tunes by seven bands over eight hours in a cozy little organic joint just blocks from the bike trail and not so far from the sea.
With good luck and good vibes, Saturday's incipient Spenard Jazz Fest might hold the promise of many festivals to come.
“This was a spur-of-the-moment, 'let's just do it' thing, but I think it will grow," said Yngvil Vatn Guttu, a multi-instrument musician known for her work in theater and on trumpet. “I don't think people know how many good jazz musicians there are in this town."
Like Karl Pasch, principal clarinet player with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra.
“Karl is Alaska's best-kept secret as far as I'm concerned," Guttu said. “I thought he was a classical geek, but he's a great jazz pianist who's going to do some samples and scratching in his set."
Pasch said the pieces he'll do Saturday “are grounded in traditional jazz and funk but mix up some of the rhythms and textures with angular multimeters and electronic sample mashing and effects."
Some of the other bands will incorporate elements of folk, funk, bop, electronic music and more, all original compositions by the musicians onstage.
Guttu wants to see the festival evolve into an annual summer event that bridges local talent with performers from the rest of the world, incorporating blues, hip-hop and experimental music of all kinds.
For now, though, she and the other local musicians who generated the idea of the festival while sipping beers last month just want to play some tunes.
For more information contact All About Jazz.
