Click here to find all of Recliner Notes’ coverage of 2024 Big Ears Festival.
It’s the last day of the 2024 Big Ears Festival! Which means it’s the last day of managing one’s day around the festival schedule, wondering when there will be time to grab lunch in between acts. It’s the last day of putting off that work conversation. It’s the last day of prioritizing music over pretty much everything else in one’s life.
Big Ears Sunday did not include as much moving from venue-to-venue and instead, I made sure I was connected to the bigger acts planned for the day. I took in six performances. My only Thurston Moore sighting was when he was onstage. No other celebrities were spotted on the street, but I did see two dudes wearing Aquarium Drunkard and Three Lobed Recordings hats sitting within five feet of each other. The whole family is here! With that, let’s move on to the observational timeline for Sunday at Big Ears!
Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens: American Railroad
Mill & Mine
Sunday, March 24, 2024
1:00 PM – 2:15 PM
While Giddens serves as the front-person and artistic director for the Silkroad Ensemble, she was far from the most dominant member. Their performance at Mill & Mine reflected the collective nature of the group; performers providing different musical voices and artistic traditions. Chanting and the blowing of the shell kicked off the performance as the songs were pulled from their American Railroad program as well as older material from the Ensemble.
Evan Lurie – Quintet with Bandoneon
Bijou Theatre
Sunday, March 24, 2024
2:00 PM – 3:15 PM
This performance was a true delight, as Evan Lurie — former Lounge Lizard as well as being John Lurie’s brother — presented a selection of tango gypsy klezmer jazz. If you’ve ever watched Waking Life, Richard Linklater’s cinematic ode to dreams, that movie’s soundtrack provided a good comparison to the music presented by Lurie’s ensemble. Lurie led the way on piano accompanied by a stellar lineup, including Jill Jaffe on violin, Greg Cohen on bass, the ubiquitous Marc Ribot playing guitar, and Julien Labro at center-stage on bandoneon. Labro stole the show as I have never seen a bandoneon (or an accordion, for that matter) played in such a way, expressing a range of emotions and musical stylings. Maybe Labro should play a free jazz set at next year’s Big Ears! At one point, Labro even pulled out a melodica and played the saddest and most beautiful melodies you’ve ever heard on that instrument. At various points throughout the program, Lurie spoke to the audience to share stories, tell jokes, and provide context for the music. After watching and hearing his brother speak in films and on his shows Fishing with John and Painting with John, it was endearing to see how many mannerisms and vocal textures Evan shares with John. Lurie said that he initially resisted presenting this program at all, explaining to Big Ears that the music was composed as a means to feature the late Alfredo Pedernera on bandoneon. They immediately responded with the names of five different bandoneon players in the New York City area. So, he realized they meant business and wouldn’t take no for an answer. The audience was grateful because the music was heart-breakingly romantic and sad, especially the duet performed by Lurie and Labro as well as a song featuring Lurie and Ribot trading solos back and forth.
Here’s a taste of Marc Ribot’s playing during this performance:
Henry Threadgill / Vijay Iyer / Dafnis Prieto
Tennessee Theatre
Sunday, March 24, 2024
3:45 PM – 5:00 PM
What a treat to see these three masters of their trades come together to create beautiful and complex music. Threadgill led the way on the first piece on flute, providing a quiet and meditative piece. The rest of the music relied on confident riffs, Latin-flavored grooves, and long solos and duets. Iyer and Prieto’s talents shined the brightest in this trio, especially when they locked in and played off of one another. They gave the sense of perfectly tuned and engineered Formula One racing cars. Sitting directly behind Iyer gave me a unique perspective to watch his overly impressive command of the keyboard. This may have been Iyer’s only appearance during all of 2024 Big Ears, so it says a lot about his friendship and regard for Prieto and Threadgill that he flew in to only perform this short set.
Thurston Moore and John Paul Jones
Mill & Mine
Sunday, Mar 24
5:45 PM – 7:15 PM
My most anticipated performance of the day was the only one that happened to feature former members of Led Zeppelin and Sonic Youth. How many other festivals can boast that? This anticipation must have been equaled by everyone else at Big Ears Sunday as there was a long delay waiting for the doors to open. After finally inside the venue, Jones started off on bass, manipulating the sounds he produced with random noises and samples of human voices. Moore generated a procession of his own weird noises, demonstrating why his well-worn Jazzmaster guitar is so well-worn by hitting it with a stick and jamming the stick behind the strings. Anything to create that patented Thurston Moore wave of noise. The music that the two played was free, that could have been a soundtrack for a ride through a wormhole. Here are a few of the descriptions that I wrote down in my notes during the performance: “Instead of rolling thunder, this was a rolling wormhole;” “snarling robotic snakes;” “alien communication;” “haunted house soundtrack with cries and moans;” and “exploding bombs / buildings coming down.” It was that kind of show! There was very little communication between the two during the three pieces played, but every once in a while, Jones would see Moore’s antics and grin appreciatively. During the part of the show that the duo seemed to be rivaling Sunn O))) for blocking-out-the-sun soundscapes, Moore positioned himself in front of his amp, raising the guitar up and down to produce waves of feedback. At one point, he held the guitar over his head and looked awfully close to the rock and roll ideal of a triumphant Jimmy Page posing onstage. The last piece of the performance saw Jones playing the baby grand piano, moving between bop-ish and bluesy riffs, to out and out noise while Moore ranted with his guitar. This was not music for the faint of heart, leaving me wondering if I was the only one who feared for Jones’s health. “You’re 78 years old, John Paul Jones, we need you to be able to make it on to the airplane!” In the end, there were no reasons to be concerned as both were clearly enthusiastic at the chance to play music with the other.
Jakob Bro
Regas Square
Sunday, March 24, 2024
8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
Bro showcased command of his pink Telecaster guitar by playing jazz and surf-filled imaginative space guitar, cutting tones through the ambient and ghostly sound washes playing behind this trio. Brian Blades was featured on drums, and it was a delight to see him play. He was supportive and sympathetic in his playing when accompaniment was needed, and then stepped to the front when it was his turn to solo. The venue setup had cameras pointed at the musicians and projected real-time video of the performance on a large wall on another part of the venue. This projection allowed the audience to view Blade from behind during his solo, a unique vantage point that allowed another way to appreciate Blade’s playing. Fortunately, the screen was blocked for the performers, so we were spared the musician-equivalent of a football player viewing himself on the Jumbotron while running on the field.
Medeski • Russo • Ribot
Mill & Mine
Sunday, March 24, 2024
9:15 PM – 10:45 PM\
My last show of Big Ears Sunday and the last show for the entire 2024 Big Ears Festival was fitting in that it featured Marc Ribot. He serves as a jack-of-all-trades for Big Ears, contributing to a variety of performers and ensembles and always providing whatever is needed for the specific style and mood. Ribot’s guitar playing is incredible, especially on the electric guitar. He is insurgent, driving, yet also quiet and respectful when needed. He fills a unique space in the pantheon of guitar players, making connections between Jimi Hendrix, Link Wray, La Monte Young, and name your favorite Cuban guitar player. This trio had only performed once before 2024 Big Ears, but you would be challenged to think that they haven’t been playing together for years. The music moved from ambient to slinky/sexy grooves to funk to loud slashing sounds to smokey, noir atmospheres. How this trio hasn’t recorded a soundtrack, or a proper record is mind-bogglingly. The music is beyond impressive and is ready for the major leagues. Time to get in the studio, guys!
That’s all the time for me at the 2024 Big Ears Festival! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these recaps, and I hope they’ll let me do this again next year.
Image is courtesy of George Middlebrooks / asideproject.com.
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