BRIC’s ninth annual JazzFest explored the present and future of jazz music.
Photo courtesy of Julia Drummond
Artists and music lovers explored the ever-evolving boundaries and themes of jazz music through performance and conversation at the ninth annual BRIC JazzFest last weekend.
When preparing for the yearly music show, organizers wanted to invite artists who could move the conversations of what jazz is and what it should be in the future, according to Wes Jackson, president of BRIC.
“We’re fighting to reclaim the identify as [jazz] is many things,” Jackson said. “We can take this sort of ethos of challenging who decides what art is, who decides what it is not, who makes these rigid categories which defy intellect.”
The three-day music festival kicked off on Oct. 19 with a panel that discussed the intersections of jazz and hip-hop. Panelists led conversations on how collaboration between both genres spotlights the similarities and differences in each art form. The next two days of the festival showed off that collaboration in action, with a dozen artists varying in style, age, experience and cultural backgrounds.
According to Viviana Benitez, a performing arts producer and JazzFest curator at BRIC, jazz has always been alive and has always co-existed with other genres like blues and hip-hop.
“If the current generation feels lost on this genre, then they’re not really listening to hip-hop,” she said. “When following history and Black struggle, Black liberation and Black music, it’s all there.”
The team intentionally included younger artists who draw inspiration from hip-hop to show jazz is not an antiquated style but is still celebrated.
“We’re attacking this idea of jazz as some old swing music,” Jackson said. “Jazz is open to interpretation like all art and it needs to evolve.”
That evolution seemed to be a general theme throughout the weekend as many performers crossed musical boundaries. On…
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