Big Ears Festival 2024 Preview
It's been seven long years since I last went to the Big Ears Festival, a combination of Covid shutting things down (2020-21) and my own inertia. But, I'm happily returning for this year's festival, which takes place next week (March 21-24) in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. Now in it's 11th edition, the boundary pushing, genre-busting festival has grown significantly since my last visit in 2017 (I also attended in 2015 and 2016), adding several new venues including the 6,500 capacity Knoxville Civic Auditorium. As always, festival producer and founder Ashley Capps applies the same basic formula that he used when he was the chief booker at Bonnaroo: pile together as much interesting, wow-inducing music as you can within a set amount of space and time in order to build a critical mass of energy and excitement. Hopefully without long lines.
One of the things I simultaneously enjoy/find frustrating about Big Ears is the lack of any kind of genre filter: the schedule doesn't tell you what's jazz, new music, indie, electronica, or whatever. I get it, that's exactly the point: to have folks flit from Laurie Anderson, to Henry Threadgill, to Andre 3000 and find something to enjoy in all of it. Or not. Still, I need some way of organizing the nearly 200 shows that are happening over four days. So, with apologies to Capps and the other festival organizers, I've assembled my own highly-subjective roadmap of the best things happening next week - by genre. Here goes.
Indie
Things kick off on Thursday with Kurt Vile & the Violators and Adrianne Lenker playing back to back at the KCA. Later on, 90's post punk outfit Unwound plays a set at the Mill & Mine. Then there are power women such as Kristin Hersh (Friday) and Beth Orton (Saturday). Sunday brings a duet between Thurston Moore and Led Zepplin's John Paul Jones. Other curiosities include London's Bar Italia, Baltimore's Horse Lords, and Ringdown, Caroline Shaw's irresistible new project with her partner Danni Lee.
New Music
Tempting as it is to see Kronos Quartet in one of their last performances with longtime violinist John Sherba and violist Hank Dutt, they're doing the exact same 50th anniversary program I saw at Carnegie in November. Same goes for Laurie Anderson, who is great but all too familiar. I'm more curious about Roger Eno - Brian's brother - an ambient composer who's written scores for dozens of film and TV series. Or cellist Zoe Keating.
Jazz
The big headliner this year is Herbie Hancock, who plays Saturday night at the KCA. But there are other lots of other great options from across the jazz spectrum, including pianists Brad Mehldau, Jason Moran and Vijay Iyer, bassist (and Newport Jazz Fest honcho) Christian McBride, and guitarists Mary Halvorson and Marc Ribot. On the avant end of the spectrum, there are old lions such as Henry Threadgill, Wayne Horvitz and Charles Lloyd, while London's Shabaka (Sons of Memet), and John Medeski represent the world of rock/jazz fusion. But, I'm probably most excited to see Darcy James Argue and his Secret Society big band perform music from his astonishing new release Dynamic Maximum Tension on Friday night at the Bijou.
Roots
Rhiannon Giddens performs Friday (solo) and Saturday (with her partner Francesco Turrisi and Christian McBride). Other acts worth checking out include Aoife O'Donovan, Molly Tuttle, and Sam Amidon.
World Music
In addition to her solo work, Rhiannon Giddens now leads the Silk Road Ensemble, which plays Sunday afternoon at the Mill & Mine, followed by Mali's Fatoumata Diawara. Later on, Laraaji and Suphala mix tabla and electronics.
Electronica
This year, Big Ears focuses on the significant Black contribution to electronic music with "Blacktronika: Afrofuturism in Electronic Music." Friday at the Mill and Mine features Detroit legend Carl Craig, with support from King Britt, DJ Heather and Suzi Analogue. Other acts include Computer Jay, Charlie Dark MBE, Kenya's KMRU, and Tyondai Braxton.
Other
I don't really know how to categorize Grammy-winning dynamo Jon Batiste - New Orleans Jazz? Pop? R&B? - but he'll be closing the festival Sunday night at the KCA (which unfortunately I'll have to miss). Outkast's Andre 3000 will be appearing throughout the festival performing music from his new instrumental release New Blue Sun. On Saturday, Tredici Bacci plays music inspired by the spaghetti soundtracks of the 60's and 70's. And on Thursday, cellist Charles Curtis will perform La Monte Young's Just Charles & Cello in The Romantic Chord in a setting of Abstract #1 from Quadrilateral Phase Angle Traversals in Dream Light, with a light installation by Marian Zazeela.
If you're headed to Knoxville - and by now, you'd better have a hotel room - passes are still available both by day and for the full weekend. Though, it must be said, that at $178 for a one-day pass, or $437 for the four day weekend, you're going to need to clone yourself for it to make any real financial sense. Not to mention you'd better have comfortable shoes.