BIMA is honored to partner with Seattle’s Earshot Jazz once again, and to participate in the most prestigious jazz music festival in the Pacific Northwest. Earshot Jazz works year-round to cultivate a vibrant jazz community—taking risks, honoring artistic integrity and innovation, and connecting jazz artists to audiences through the Earshot Jazz Festival.

The Within/Earshot Jazz Festival is a PRISM program of BIMA. PRISM is a cultural catalyst delivering intimate, curated performances, presentations, and cultural celebrations that explore the personal connection between artist and audience. The Within/Earshot Jazz Festival is made possible by Realogics Sotheby’s, Kitsap County, City of Bainbridge Island Cultural Fund, Earshot Jazz, Crosscut, KCTS 9, KNKX Radio, and arts supporter Steve Davis.

Schedule :

October 3, 2023

Rediscovering Dave Brubeck – Smartfilms: Jazz

Initially aired on PBS, Rediscovering Dave Brubeck offers a warm retrospective of Dave Brubeck’s influential and groundbreaking career as one of jazz music’s most popular pianists and composers.

From Brubeck’s early dreams of being a cowboy to the classical music education that led him to pioneer innovative rhythms in his compositions, this film summarizes Brubeck’s extraordinary career through archival footage, photographs, and home movies, while simultaneously maintaining a clear focus on Brubeck’s later activities as an actively admired jazz musician.

Having just turned octogenarian at the time of filming, Brubeck is revealed as a lastingly vibrant, funny, and insightful artist in a series of thoughtful interviews (many filmed at Brubeck’s home with his wife and sometimes collaborator, Iola Brubeck, by his side). As this is the first feature-length documentary on Brubeck, his fans, and all fans of jazz, are hereby called to take five and settle in with this rewarding portrayal of a true living (and playing) legend of jazz music. — Karl Wachter

Buy Tickets

October 8, 2023

Jenny Davis Jazz Quartet

Described as an innovative joyful Jazz Quartet performing original music and jazz standards, the Jenny Davis Quartet features Jenny Davis, vocals; Marina Albero, piano; Ted Enderle, bass; and Xavier Lecouturier, drums. Redefining the art of singing, award-winning vocalist, composer, and bandleader Jenny Davis has established herself as an innovative, progressive composer, gaining the attention and respect of musicians, critics, and fans throughout the US and abroad. ROOTS MUSIC declares Jenny “a talented singer-composer – knocking it out of the park!”

Celebrating 17 weeks on top of the jazz charts, her 5th album Rearranged, is deeply inspired by her devotion to promotion of human rights advocacy. The album includes a collection of original scores and brings together an all-star cast of musicians with whom Davis has previously collaborated, including a special alliance with three-time GRAMMY-nominated pianist Jovino Santos Neto, and featuring Chuck Deardorf (bass), Dmitri Matheny (flugelhorn), Mark Taylor (saxophone), Kate Olson (saxophone), and New York-based Sirius String Quartet. “An odyssey of a fully-fledged composer who has skillfully crafted an opus of collected experiences and memories and lovingly shares them with her audience” – EARSHOT JAZZ

Born and raised in Seattle, Davis received her Bachelor of Music from Cornish College of the Arts, as a Maggie Hawthorne scholarship recipient. She went on to receive her MFA in music composition from Vermont College of Fine Arts, receiving women’s composer scholarships. She is currently serving as a director with the Seattle Composer Alliance, as a new music concert producer.

Buy Tickets

October 10, 2023

Cabin in the Sky - Smartfilms: Jazz

When Cabin in the Sky arrived in 1943, many theaters still refused to screen films featuring black performers in central roles, making its release a considerable gamble for MGM — and one that happily paid off with an Oscar-nominated hit.

While the film’s racial dynamics have aged about as well as you might expect given its vintage, it was admirably forward-thinking in some respects given the context of its time, and it offered a richly deserved spotlight to a roster of performers that included Lena Horne and Louis Armstrong. “Cabin in the Sky,” crowed The New York Times, “is a bountiful entertainment.”

Buy Tickets

October 12, 2023

Jazz With Jim: Jazz Masters of the Past

Jazz with Jim is a deep dive into the beautiful American art form of Jazz. Mixing music, photos, and video clips with an infectious lecture style that betrays his passion for the subject, Jim Cauter takes guests on a musical journey that illuminates aspects of American history, jazz giants, social justice, race relations, and music as a universal language.

Join Jim as he shares select composers, instrumentalists, and vocalists whose music continues to sound fresh – engaging and inspiring all people fortunate enough to experience it.

Buy Tickets

October 15, 2023

Naomi Moon Siegel Ensemble

“The impression given by Naomi Moon Siegel is that she is serenading the constellations. There’s an imagery inherent to her music that is greater than the calculus of the notes, much in the same way a certain collection of stars become meaningful in the context of their astronomical shape and name and story.” – Dave Sumner, Best of 2019 Jazz on Bandcamp

The Naomi Moon Siegel Ensemble is a genre-bending, experiential adventure weaving instrumental landscapes from soaring melodies, visceral textures, creative interplay, layered rhythms and improvisation. After receiving a Performance Plus Grant from Chamber Music America to workshop and record their music with mentorship from Allison Miller, the ensemble has become a cohesive, collaborative, intuitive unit. The ensemble features Marina Albero on piano, Ray Larsen on trumpet, Andy Coe on guitar, Kelsey Mines on bass, Christopher Icasiano on drums, and Siegel on trombone.

Trombonist, composer and educator Naomi Moon Siegel has “crafted a truly unique aesthetic, combining elements of straight-ahead, fusion, and modern jazz with world-music flavors in a way that sounds entirely of the 21st century” (JAZZIZ). A recipient of the Montana Arts Council Artist Innovation Award, Jazz Journalist Association Jazz Hero Award, and Earshot Jazz Golden Ear Award, she has released two albums as a bandleader to critical acclaim.

Buy Tickets

October 17, 2023

Keep On Keepin' On - Smartfilms: Jazz

Trumpeter Clark Terry was such an influential and prolific player that it would have been easy to put together a biopic looking at nothing but his music — and it’s very much to director Alan Hicks’ credit that his movie, 2014’s Keep On Keepin’ On, offers a much more personal overview of what made Terry so special.

Instead of surveying his legacy along established narrative lines, Hicks focuses on the beautiful friendship between Terry and Justin Kauflin, a much younger pianist he took under his wing and spent countless hours mentoring. While offering ample demonstration of Terry’s professional legacy, Keepin’ also emphatically underscores what he brought to this life on a personal level, and serves as a graceful, quiet reminder of the power of a simple human connection. “One need not be a jazz aficionado to enjoy this film,” wrote David Lewis for the San Francisco Chronicle, “all that’s required is a smile.”

Buy Tickets

October 20, 2023

Folks Project

An evolution of friendship and a love of music, Folks Project began during Seattle Center’s International Jazz Day, 2015. Folks Project band consist of pianist Darrius Willrich, drummer D’Vonne Lewis and bassist Evan Flory-Barnes, three of Seattle’s most in-demand musicians.

Darrius Willrich, as keyboardist for Grammy Award winner Digable Planets and the “Future Hip-Hop” band Shabazz Palace tours globally, performing at mega-festivals such as: Pitchfork Music Festival, The Thing Music Festival, Blue Note New York and Blue Note Napa Jazz Festivals, the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival and Essence Music Festival in New Orleans. Folks Project’s Evan Flory-Barnes and D’Vonne Lewis are also members of Seattle’s acclaimed Stranger Genius Award winning band “Industrial Revelation”.

Bassist, Evan Flory-Barnes credits included performing on Hip-Hop’s artist’s Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ 2014 Grammy Award CD: “The Heist.” And D’Vonne Lewis is a multi-Earshot award winner, as well as the principal drummer for the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra. D’Vonne also tours with the legendary Hip-Hop group Digable Planets with Folks Project bandmate, Darris Willrich. Together they personify the rich vein of vibrant talent that personifies Seattle’s contemporary jazz scene.

Buy Tickets

October 24, 2023

All Night Long - Smartfilms: Jazz

All Night Long is a 1962 British neo noir drama and an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello. Set in London’s jazz nightclub scene of the 1960s and featuring a stellar cast of Patrick Mcgoohan, Marti Stevens, Paul Harris, Richard Attenborough and Betsy Blair, the film was first panned by many British critics who were Shakespeare purists.

TCM states that they ‘dismissed it as a travesty of the original because of its ‘happy’ ending.’ But the film has been reconsidered not just for its cinematic quality but because it showcases such well known jazz artists as Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck and John Dankworth. The thrilling musical numbers offer a rare look at Mingus and Brubeck in their only appearance in a dramatic film.

Buy Tickets

October 26, 2023

Jazz With Jim: Jazz Today

Jazz with Jim is a deep dive into the beautiful American art form of Jazz. Mixing music, photos, and video clips with an infectious lecture style that betrays his passion for the subject, Jim Cauter takes guests on a musical journey that illuminates aspects of American history, jazz giants, social justice, race relations, and music as a universal language.

The quality of the composers, arrangers, and musicians contributing to the art of Jazz Today is truly astounding. Join Jim as he plays selections from and profiles the artistry of contemporary instrumentalists, vocalists, and ensembles whose music presently contributes to the evolutionary continuum of Jazz.

Buy Tickets

October 29, 2023

Return to Chick Corea : Return to Chick Corea: Crosara, Nikolaev, Phares and Ivester

RETURN TO CHICK COREA is a quartet-based music tribute to the great jazz composer, enhanced with additional original compositions created in the characteristic Spanish-infused style of Corea.

The RETURN TO CHICK COREA band was formed as a concept exchange between bassist Bruce Phares and pianist Francesco Crosara. A spirited conversation after a lovely duet performance led to the idea of a concert of all-Chick-Corea compositions, a natural for Crosara’s Corea-influenced keyboard virtuosity, as well as Phares’ style of bass playing.

After an initial performance, Francesco, Bruce, and sax-wizard Alexey Nikolaev solidified the concept into the “Return to Chick Corea” band with the great Mark Ivester (drums).

Buy Tickets

October 31, 2023

Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes - Smartfilms: Jazz

This documentary details the history of Blue Note Records, one of the most renowned labels in jazz and, by extension, that of American music — Blue Note Records has been home to such groundbreaking artists as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Bud Powell and Art Blakey, as well as present-day luminaries like Robert Glasper, Ambrose Akinmusire and Norah Jones.

Beginning with its founding in 1939 by German immigrants who fled the Nazis, and tracing its succession of great artists from Thelonious Monk to Herbie Hancock and Norah Jones, the film also looks at the label’s broader influences on contemporary hip-hop.

Buy Tickets

November 1, 2023

Celebrating Mary Lou Williams – An Evening of Live Performance and Film

Mary Lou Williams was a giant of jazz and of jazz piano playing. Her lifetime and playing styles spanned several sub-genres. As Duke Ellington said, “She was perpetually contemporary”. She began playing professionally when boogie and stride piano were the jazz styles of the day and she continued to evolve her playing ahead of each new sub-genre of jazz that developed in the 20th century. Thus we can turn to Mary Lou’s music, her compositions and playing, to hear the history of jazz in the 20th century.

Pianist and composer Ann Reynolds and Filmmaker Kay D. Ray are putting together a show Celebrating Mary Lou Williams An Evening of Live Performance and Film, using her compositions and favorite pieces performed by NW musicians. The live performances will be interspersed with archival film interview clips and rare performance footage of Mary Lou Williams to tell the story.

These musicians and filmmakers include:

- Pianist/Composer Ann Reynolds
- Filmmaker Kay D. Ray
- Pianist/Conductor Kent Stevenson
- Pianist/Composer Nelda Swiggett
- Pianist Alex Guilbert
- Bassist/Music Impresario Terry Morgan
- Drummer/Conductor Maria Wulf
- Bassist Heather Chriscaden
- Flute and Trombone Freddy Fuego Gonzalez
- Tenor Saxophonist Jason Turner
- Film Editor Susan Merrill

Buy Tickets

Date : October 3, 2023 - November 1, 2023

Location :

Bainbridge Performing Arts Center - Frank Buxton Auditorium

200 Madison Avenue North,

Bainbridge Island, WA 98110.

Click Here to View for More Information