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1 week ago | 
thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen
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2 weeks ago | 
thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen |Jacob Blickenstaff
As part of a suite of coverage from the Big Ears Festival, here’s another special collab between The Gig and , focusing on a single concert. Please enjoy!This is an odd and conflicted predilection for a trumpeter-bandleader situated, however loosely, in the volatile tradition of modern jazz. Akinmusire recognizes the paradox, has struggled in various ways before learning how to lean into it.
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3 weeks ago | 
thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen
I don’t mean that literally, despite what the image above implies. In my experience, it’s actually the opposite: the vibe of the fest imparts a sort of hyperclarity to every musical encounter. The quality of listening is heightened. The powers of concentration are deepened. The appetite for sonic discovery is sharpened. And because of a wild profusion of enticing options, the FOMO is more or less constant, running like a low-voltage current through the whole affair.
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1 month ago | 
thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen
Last night, I had a dream about Big Ears. The details are a little murky, and getting more so as they recede into the unconscious horizon — but I can clearly recall the premise. I was on site in Knoxville (or some alternate Dream Knoxville, as it were), having just left a panel or artist talk that I moderated. A sudden, dismaying thought: the festival is winding down. Almost over. And I still haven’t heard any music!I swear I’m remembering this truthfully, to the best of my ability.
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1 month ago | 
thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen
Trumpeter Riley Mulherkar and trombonist Andy Clausen have been friends and musical partners for nearly 20 years — since they were both literally kids in Seattle, just starting to hone their chops and form a relationship with the jazz tradition. I first met them in April of 2010, first in two separate high school band rooms and then together in an artfully scruffy coffee shop. In case you missed it, I tell that story in the post below, which also heralds new music by their band, The Westerlies.
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1 month ago | 
thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen
There are no instruments in Sacred Harp singing. Also known as shape-note music, it’s an American tradition tied up with religious community and rural folkways, originating in colonial New England and extending into Appalachia. The human voice, i.e. “sacred harp,” is all that the music requires. That and a communal intention.
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1 month ago | 
thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen
Eight decades after the premiere of the Technicolor musical State Fair, it’s easy to take for granted the wonders of its most lasting contribution. I’m referring to the Rodgers and Hammerstein song “It Might As Well Be Spring,”performed onscreen by Jeanne Crain (with a vocal dub by Louanne Hogan). In a movie generally regarded as a lukewarm corndog — “no more than an average screen musical,” per the Times — this song stood apart, fast becoming a hit1, and then an Oscar winner.
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1 month ago | 
thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen
Happy Friday, and Happy Pi Day — I hope an irrational number isn’t your only transcendental value today. Two years ago, I made it official and turned The Gig into a paid newsletter. As I’ve noted here before, I took that decision seriously, because it’s no small thing to ask a reader not only for their time and attention but also for material support. The experience has outpaced my expectations, and that has everything to do with you.
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1 month ago | 
thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen
The mood was cordial, albeit faintly tinged with ambient anxiety, when I sat down to dinner with Rudresh Mahanthappa in Montclair, New Jersey on this day five years ago. We met at a Mediterranean restaurant near Anderson Park, both of us aware that our world was stumbling into something that no one could claim to understand. One day earlier, New Jersey had reported its first death from COVID-19.
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1 month ago | 
thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen
Happy Friday, and Happy National Employee Appreciation Day! I’m here today to share a few new things I worked on in my capacity as an employee of WRTI, Philadelphia’s jazz & classical station. So consider this a plug across platforms. I’m proud of each of these pieces, and hope you enjoy them. Shall we? Today is also National Flapjack Day, National Tartar Sauce Day, and National Crown Roast of Pork Day.