JazzLab at the BCA Center

ART MUSIC FILM PANEL DISCUSSIONS JUNE 4-10, 2022

CURATED BY

BURLI N GTON CI T YA RTS.O RG

PART O F

MICHAEL MWENSO & JONO GASPARRO

JUNE 1 - JULY 3 BCA CENTER

FROM THE ARCHIVES: BURLINGTON’S DISCOVER JAZZ FESTIVAL

Featuring work by Vermont photographers Luke Awtry, Brian Drourr, and Mark Harlan, From the Archives presents a selection of photographs that document some of the unforgettable jazz visionaries and indelible performances that have defined the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival over the past few decades.

SAT, JUNE 4

HOURLY 3-8 PM

X-VOTIVE LIVE IN CONTOIS AUDITORIUM

Produced by In Tandem Arts and directed by Trish Denton, X-Votive is an immersive video performance featuring the atmospheric music of Acqua Mossa. Follow otherworldly time traveler Stephanie Wilson on an extraordinary odyssey through the portals of Burlington. Be mesmerized by surround sound and light as you stand in the “time chamber” to experience the multi-directional storyline. X-Votive begins every hour on the hour.

MON, JUNE 6 5 PM

JAZZ AND THE CULTURAL IMAGINATION

Why is jazz so interesting to poets, photographers, actors, athletes, architects, filmmakers, chefs, video game designers, and fashionistas? How does jazz improvisation, rhythmic groove, call-and-response interactivity, hipness, soulfulness, urbanity, mobility, and multicultural vibrancy inspire and inform so much creativity across the arts and culture?

UVM professor and jazz scholar John Gennari (author of Blowin’ Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics and Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge) leads a panel in which he and several students from his course “Jazz and the Cultural Imagination” (Grady Kennison, Lexie Perlow, and Emily Thibodeau) explore jazz as a model for innovative writing, moving, seeing, stylizing, thinking, and feeling – jazz, that is, as a cornerstone of the modern cultural imagination.

This panel has support from the Media Factory.

TUES, JUNE 7 12 PM

ANCESTRAL COMMUNAL LISTENING EXPERIENCES

Saxophonist Ruben Fox plays a reflective meditation in response to Eric Aho’s expansive nature paintings in the gallery exhibition Headwater. Immediately following is an Ancestral Communal Listening gathering, where Festival Curator Michael Mwenso and guests guide audiences through different musical styles of Black roots music to discover and celebrate significant, formative artists in these spaces.

WED, JUNE 8 4 PM

JALEN BAKER JAZZ VIBRAPHONIST

Jalen Baker performs select pieces honoring the music of jazz vibraphonists past and present. The program is designed to complement and bring an added dimension to the immersive landscape paintings of Eric Aho featured in Headwater.

THURS, JUNE 9 12-2 PM

ART JAM

Drop-in to the BCA Center with your favorite instrument for an impromptu jam session in the first floor gallery. Musicians of all levels are invited to respond to the scale, gesture, and rhythm of Eric Aho’s monumental, expressive paintings of the natural world featured in the exhibit Headwater.

THURS, JUNE 9 4:30 PM

LOCAL LEGENDS AND THE GROWTH OF JAZZ IN VERMONT

How did jazz become so popular in Vermont? That Burlington is now celebrating its 38th year of a 10-day music festival devoted exclusively to jazz is truly amazing.

In this hour-long panel, hear firsthand from some of Vermont’s longstanding contributors and stalwarts of the genre as to how this phenomenon came to be. Moderated by veteran broadcast journalist Fran Stoddard, panelists discuss how jazz was first introduced to the state and how generations of jazz musicians helped cultivate a resounding interest. Panelists also discuss the venues and nightclubs where jazz was most supported, and how touring big bands and other jazz ensembles made their way to the Green Mountains. Panelists include guitarist and educator Paul Asbell, sax/woodwind player and educator Rich Davidian, bassist and mandolin player Will Patton, pianist and teacher Rob Guerrina, and jazz singer Jenni Johnson. This program has support from the Media Factory.

THURS, JUNE 9 8:30 PM

FLICKS IN THE PARK: FIRE AND ICE W/ PERFORMANCE BY ELEW

Under the stars in City Hall Park, hear pianist ELEW’s live accompaniment of the Smithsonian‘s Yellowstone Park documentary Fire and Ice. Winter in Yellowstone is like nothing else on Earth. Driving snow and temperatures 50 degrees below zero collide with spewing heat from subterranean forces, creating dramatic, otherworldly displays. Embark on a journey over vast blankets of snow, through sparkling prisms of “diamond dust,” and across rivers warmed by geothermal springs. Flicks in the Park has support from American Flatbread Burlington Hearth, Monarch & the Milkweed, and Point 2. 2022 City Hall Park programming is underwritten by the Pomerleau Family Foundation.

FRI, JUNE 10 2 PM

THE ASTRAL PROJECTOR ORCHESTRA GETS SURREAL

A trio performs live accompaniment to three silent films on the second floor of the BCA Center. The Astral Projector Orchestra is comprised of Randal Pierce on piano and accordion, Xander Naylor on guitar, and Dan Ryan on drums. The orchestra performs a live score to three surrealist short films: Man Ray’s Emak Bakia (1926), Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1946), and Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel’s Un Chien Andalou (1929).

As part of the 2022 Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, BCA presents a week of programming that celebrates the intersection of jazz, art, and community with concerts, films, panel discussions, and more. All programs are free and open to the public.

JAZZLAB TAKES PLACE AT THE BCA CENTER, 135 CHURCH STREET, DOWNTOWN BURLINGTON EXPANDED DESCRIPTIONS OF JAZZLAB PROGRAMMING CAN BE FOUND AT BURLINGTONCITYARTS.ORG