5th ANNUAL EDMONDS JAZZ WALK – MAY 30
by Emily Steinhilber
Edmonds sits roughly fifteen miles north of Seattle along the shoreline of Puget Sound, close enough that the city remains visible in your maps app but not in your direct line of sight from Seattle. Not in my vision at least, we share the same side of the ocean shore so Edmonds is a neighbor to me…I suppose …..but definitely visually far enough away to feel like you’ve slipped into a different rhythm entirely.
The ferry runs out to Edmonds regularly from Seattle, I think. Although I have never been, more on that soon.
Anyway, my father drove us there with the sort of determination normally associated with emergency responders. Nothing like a good quick change. But then the scenery of it all. One minute we were navigating Seattle traffic like the gig started in ten (it did ). But the next we were sort of guided and descending toward a waterfront downtown place. Maybe there were flower baskets hanging above the sidewalks but I’m not sure, the golden hour had taken hold of me and the people wrapped in its radiance.
I was dazzled by that. I am a California blonde afterall, but also it was that nobody appeared particularly interested in being in a hurry. And there were so many people out enjoying this little town. The whole majesty of mother earth at this time of day, with jazz all over the place. So organic and grounding.
As per usual. The grounding reality of industry set in with impeccable timing to balance the coastal greatness . . . I never actually managed to get my press bracelet until the end of the night. Or at least not before the festival had already started happening to me.
Welcome to Seat Map with Emily Steinhilber. We’ll call this installment: The Spillage Edition. Now, for this one, walk with me?
Seat Map is an ongoing listening project concerned with place, presence, and perception. It documents Conditions; live music as environment. Conditions—shaped by room acoustics, social dynamics, historical residue, and the physical position of the listener. Rather than reviewing performances in the traditional sense, this series approaches live music as a spatial and cultural artifact.
The installments to date feature venues throughout the Pacific Northwest and greater Seattle area. The premise for Seat Map is fairly simple, though I suspect its implications are less so; even the smallest, seemingly incidental details begin to shape the experience of jazz improvisation in real time. The posture here is deliberate and disciplined. Raised by a working jazz musician in the west burbs of Chicago; I learned early on that there’s a particular kind of intimacy that only happens in a jazz room.
