A jazz continuum: concerts highlight its past and evolution

An all-star group of jazz musicians will start a 51-city, national tour in Seattle tonight with a concert at the Moore Theatre, performing selections from their album, "Mosaic," intended to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Blue Note records, the label nearly synonymous with jazz music.

The sextet is led by pianist and arranger Bill Charlap and includes drummer Lewis Nash, bassist Peter Washington, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, and saxophonists Ravi Coltrane (the son of jazz great John Coltrane) and Steve Wilson.

The album, "Mosaic: A Celebration of Blue Note Records," condensed 70 years of artists and albums into eight songs, arranged by the band members. The concert gives the musicians a chance to play the songs they could not include on the album.

They'll spend the better part of three months traveling mostly by bus from west to east to promote the album. The tour moves to Yakima Friday before going to Oregon and California. It ends in March in New York City.

"The legacy of Blue Note records is not just the record company, it's all the musicians," Charlap said. "They're truly our heroes. In our minds, when we're playing, they're on a great shelf up high and out of reach, Earl Hines, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, all the giants. So anywhere you are, you imagine them right there in the room. And it makes us always do the best we can."

If the Moore concert downtown celebrates jazz history, over in Wallingford jazz fans can get a listen to how the music has evolved. The "Is That Jazz?" improvised music festival begins at 8 p.m. tonight with two concerts at the Good Shepherd Chapel Performance Space. Violist Christian Asplund will play a solo set, substituting everyday objects like paper and cardboard for a conventional bow. The quartet Cipher will play the second set. The group features violinists Tom Swafford and Tari Nelson-Zagar, and clarinetists Jesse Canterbury and Greg Sinibaldi.

The festival continues the next two Thursdays, Jan. 15 and Jan. 22, with more improvised music that incorporates electronically manipulated acoustic instruments as well as dance.

"The broadest definition of music is what I'm interested in," said Asplund, who teaches music theory and composition at Brigham Young University. "I'm interested in changing the definition and in the dialogue that results."

Hugo Kugiya: hkugiya@yahoo.com