Pat Metheny is Artist-in-Residence at the free Detroit Jazz Festival this Labor Day weekend ... Sam Amidon performs at End of the Road Festival ... Tyondai Braxton goes solo in Philadelphia ... Ken Burns's The Civil War airs anew on PBS ... Olivia Chaney plays UK's Moseley Folk Festival ... Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell help celebrate St. Augustine, Florida's 450th anniversary... Punch Brothers head to Pacific Northwest ... and more ...
This long weekend—Labor Day Weekend in North America—there are a number of great musical events taking place around the world, not least the 2015 Detroit Jazz Festival, featuring guitarist/composer Pat Metheny as its Artist-in-Residence. Metheny joins a long line of artists to take the mantle, most recently his Nonesuch Records label mate Joshua Redman, who held the position in 2014.
The Detroit Jazz Festival, said to be the world's largest free jazz festival, includes several different music incarnations from its Artist-in-Residence: sets from the Pat Metheny Trio with Antonio Sánchez and Scott Colley and special guest Detroiter Kenny Garrett; an intimate acoustic duo with Detroiter Ron Carter; a reunion with the Gary Burton in a special quartet put together just for this festival; and a large ensemble with the Detroit Jazz Festival Orchestra—as well as education and mentorship activities throughout the year.
"It's very humbling to not only be asked to perform at the Detroit Jazz Festival, but to also serve as its Artist-in-Residence," said Metheny. "I'm honored and look forward to my visits to Detroit, a place with such rich music history. Getting involved with the Festival's educational programs and performing in the heart of downtown will be a memorable experience."
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Sam Amidon performs a set in Larmer Tree Gardens in Salisbury, England, on Sunday as part of the weekend-long End of the Road Festival.
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Tyondai Braxton gives a special solo (modular synthesizer and samples) performance at Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia Friday, featuring pieces from recently released Nonesuch Records debut, HIVE1. The concert is a presentation of Ars Nova Workshop, which kicks off its 15th anniversary season with the performance.
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As recently noted in the Nonesuch Journal, this month marks the 25th anniversary of the inaugural broadcast of the acclaimed Ken Burns documentary The Civil War, for which Nonesuch released the Grammy-winning soundtrack in 1990. To mark the occasion, PBS stations across the United States are rebroadcasting the series over five consecutive nights starting Labor Day Monday. This is the first presentation of a newly restored, high-definition version of the landmark documentary. This is also the first time the film will be seen with the same fidelity and framing as the negative that Burns and his co-cinematographers Allen Moore and Buddy Squires shot more than 25 years ago.
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Olivia Chaney takes part in the Moseley Folk Festival in Birmingham, England, this weekend, performing songs from her debut album, The Longest River, in Moseley Park on Saturday.
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Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell help celebrate the 450th anniversary of St. Augustine, Florida, with a free performance on the main stage at the Bayfront there Saturday night for the Celebrate 450! Festival.
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Audra McDonald, a native of Fresno, California, returned to her home state to perform two show at the Hollywood Bowl earlier this week with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and American Ballet Theatre. She remains in the state to perform at the Gallo Center for the Arts in Modesto this Saturday.
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Randy Newman is in beautiful Willemstad, Curaçao, on Saturday to perform at the Curaçao North Sea Jazz Festival.
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Punch Brothers take their US tour to the Pacific Northwest this weekend for two concerts in Oregon—at The Courtyard at the Athletic Club of Bend Friday and the Britt Festival Pavilion in Jacksonville on Saturday, both with special guest Gabriel Kahane—and a set at the Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle on Sunday.
"Punch Brothers lived up to their name with lightning-fast string playing and sonic acrobatics at Chautauqua Auditorium in Boulder on Tuesday night," exclaims Reverb's Alexandra Alonso. "The classically trained, bluegrass-drenched quintet set the stage on fire (figuratively) without breaking a sweat ... Together they blaze into songs from their most recent album, The Phosphorescent Blues, and it’s polyrhythmic bliss until the final chords of the encore." Alonso goes on to describe the result as "utterly original and emotionally resonant music."
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Joshua Redman is at Brook Farm in Skaneateles in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York on Saturday for a set at the Skaneateles Festival. He joins the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, bassist Matt Penman, and percussionist Satoshi Takeishi for a performance of Patrick Zimmerli’s Aspects of Darkness and Light, a mix of jazz, classical and world music.
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