Jeff's Jazz Festival - Day 1

The 2006 Jazz Festival has arrived in Vancouver and once again, artistic director Ken Pickering has packed the roster full of great music. Scandinavia is well-represented again this year and there's also a high concentration of acts from New Orleans. As much as I'd like to give a full rundown on everything that's going on, there's obviously way too much for me to deal with singlehandedly. Besides, The Province, The Sun, and The Georgia Straight are all on the case with their respective entertainment teams, so I'm just going to keep a running commentary on what I've been up to.

As per usual, I'll be starting my night by heading to the Vancouver East Cultural Centre at 8pm. Today being June 23rd, that means I'll be in line to see the (not so) aptly-named Nels Cline Singers who should be churning out a jagged sonic aggregate spanning the worlds of free-jazz improv, metal, rock, and whatever else they can dredge up. Hurray.

What I plan to do after has been the source of some stress since the Jazz Fest program was solidified a few months ago. Do I stick around the Cultch to watch the Scandinavian firestorm known as The Thing or make a run to the Centre for the Performing Arts to see Seu Jorge? You know the guy from "A Life Aquatic" who sings the samba-tinged renditions of David Bowie songs in Portuguese? The same cat who played Knockout Ned in "City of God"? Yeah, that guy. It's going to be a great show. Under most circumstances I'd call this one a no-brainer, but The Thing, man... The Thing. When the rhythmic backbone of both Atomic and Scorch Trio team up with Mats Gusfafsson on sax, it's not something to be taken lightly. If you saw either of Atomic's performances last year you know what I mean. What might tip the scale is the fact that Seu Jorge is only playing one Festival show, while The Thing is also playing the sunday night late show at the Ironworks. But with performance to performance variation being what it is, do I want to gamble on sunday's show being the better of the two and possibly miss the show of the Festival? What if I'd done that with Jonas Kullhammar last year? See what I'm dealing with here? What a world.

The best plan I've been able to come up with is to start with The Thing and let nature take its course. Whatever happens, I'll be ending the night in customary fashion by catching the late show at the Ironworks... tonight's performers being Vancouver's own Existential Angst Party.