The Inaugural Trance Blues Jam Festival & Workshops
by Guy Errickson
Musicians, as well as fans, of almost all instruments and genres, fire up Otis Taylor’s Trance Blues Jam Festival Friday, Nov. 25 – Sunday Nov. 27. Various workshops will be available for players of all skill levels and ages, cruising along with multiple performances at the Boulder Outlook Hotel and the historic Boulder Theater. Jump-starting the weekend is the pre-Trance-Blues Jam from 8-11pm Friday at the Outlook ($10 cover). Shift into high gear for workshop sessions Saturday and Sunday from 9:30am-3:30pm (reserve now: 303.443.3322); the chance to talk shop with the teachers and other participants during the deliberately long 2-hour lunch break will likely be worth the price!
Exceptional talents provide intimate intensive instruction: W.C. Handy Award-winning multi-instrumentalist Bluesman and banjo innovator Otis Taylor; two-time Blues Music Foundation Best Guitarist of the Year Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin; highly respected teacher and modern banjo pioneer Tony Trischka (Peter Rowan, David Grisman, Skyline, Prairie Home Companion); New Orleans native Don Vappie (Creole Jazz Serenaders, Preservation Hall Band, & expert Jazz DJ on WWOZ); spectacular guitarist and songwriter from Native-American Blues-band Indigenous Mato Nanji Standing Bear; incomparable bass player George Porter, Jr. (The Meters, 7 Walkers, Neville Brothers); Denver’s renowned trumpeter Ron Miles (Bill Frisell, Don Byron, the Mercer Ellington Orchestra); & Cassie Taylor (Girls With Guitars, Otis Taylor Band, Gary Moore). The pinnacle is Saturday night, when players who can’t attend the day sessions may also join the fray as students and teachers gather together in the Boulder Theater for an hour of jammin’ & gellin’ rehearsals until 7pm, when the audience enters to witness an utterly unique Trance-Blues performance (BoulderTheater.com).
Rev up the teenagers, Sunday at the Outlook is geared toward families and younger students, culminating as a late afternoon public jam session from 5-7pm. The Colorado Blues Society (COBlues.Org) will generously bestow four need-based scholarships (info: [email protected]). Then it’s off to the races from 7-10pm with the normally riotous (free, bi-weekly) Sunday Open Blues Jam hosted by Mark Diamond and two-time International Blues Competition winner Lionel Young.
www.OtisTaylor.com – www.BouldersHomeOfTheBlues.com
Category: Planet Buzz
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
 |
 |
