THE VISION FESTIVAL trumpets the finest lineup of jazz musicians ...
SION FESTIVAL trumpets the finest lineup of jazz musicians each year, the shared esthetic a genius exploration into the new territories of sound. Born from a desire to expand on the Improvisers Collective and the Sound Unity Festival of yesteryear, Patricia Nicholson Parker, dancer/choreographer, wife of master bassist William Parker [see interview, p.133], and executive director of the Vision Fest, brought together a family of musicians who believe in the intuitive center of music.
Creative and adventurous, this event hosts the crowned improvisers of our time, each drawing from their own pool of inspiration, whether it be African, Middle Eastern or Asian rhythms, classical music or old-school bebop. As each night will be a whole and unique experience, to see just a few sets would be opportunity wasted.
The Vision Festival started as a movement to create and fulfill the destiny of the downtown jazz scene, which was starving at the time.
"When we began the festival, the music that we presented was, for the most part, ignored," Patricia Nicholson told me. "The idea was that by bringing these artists together and presenting them in a single event, you couldn't continue to overlook them. It was a simple idea and it worked. It was a success immediately; we had a good turn-out and people were very happy to be coming together."
Over the years, it has become a community, a shared space, an occurrence that gathers connoisseurs of the music, those who believe that the possibilities of artistic creativity are boundless, empowering and beautiful. The ninth installment promises yet another run of the most interesting collaborations: the Khan Jamal Quintet, the Henry Grimes Trio, Amiri & Amina Baraka Blue Ark, the Kidd Jordan New Orleans Band, Sabir Mateen Quintet, Milford Graves Trio, Joe McPhee Quartet, Roy Campbell Jr. Tazz, Dave Burrell Echo/Peace Continuum and William Parker, to name just a few.
A multimedia event, the week will be laced with dancers propelled by the unwavering sound, spoken word poets riding over the groove and painters marking the walls with still images of movement. The thread that connects these mediums is, again, a love for the music. A similar wavelength. A parallel approach toward expression. Expanding the vocabulary of their craft by connecting directly to the source.
Mike Heller, secretary treasurer of Arts for Art, the non-profit behind the Vision, described it as a "disciplined disregard for traditional boundaries." The artists "are not being constrained within certain forms, but they're free to use those forms if need be. They're not throwing out tradition-quite the contrary, they're directly involved with it. The difference is, they're not recreating the past, they're pushing it forward."
The Center at Old St. Patrick's Cathedral, 268 Mulberry St. (Prince St.), 212-696-6681, see visionfestival.org for complete lineup, $25 per night, $140 seven-day pass.
STEVEN PSYLLOS