The Art Of Cool: 5 Bands At The Borders Of Jazz

by PATRICK JARENWATTANANON
April 25, 2014 9:03 AM ET
Alyssa Tumino/Courtesy of the artist
This weekend in central North Carolina, an adventurous music festival will pursue an explicit goal: to get more people to listen to jazz.

The event is easily the biggest production to date from the Art of Cool Project, a small concert-promotion outfit based in Durham. Encouraged by the highly educated populace of the Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle region, a concentration of successful venues and a history of African-American music, Art of Cool planned a two-day festival this Friday and Saturday throughout its hometown. And it's doing so by spotlighting many acts at the borders jazz shares with hip-hop, R&B and other similar styles.

"Our thing is expanding the audience for jazz," Art of Cool co-founder Cicely Mitchell says in a phone interview. She says she found her way into classic jazz via neo-soul and R&B herself. "We believe this festival could be a gateway festival, or a gateway presentation, to turn people on to jazz."

The most prevalent bookings feature groups who freely traverse or ignore jazz's boundaries: James Brown and Parliament saxophonist Maceo Parker, jazz-trained neo-soul vocalist Bilal, singing bassist Thundercat, eclectic and proggy guitarist/composer Rafiq Bhatia and the adventurous groove veterans in Kneebody — among many others. Here's a look at five more acts playing this weekend's Art of Cool Festival.

Miguel Atwood-Ferguson

Artist: Miguel Atwood-Ferguson
Album: Live In Los Angeles
Song: Drips/Take Notice

The second of this weekend's two headliners, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson is a musician you've probably heard but perhaps never heard of. As a studio musician (viola, among other instruments) and composer/arranger, he's worked with Ray Charles and Barry Manilow, Dr. Dre and Christina Aguilera, John Williams and Flying Lotus. Jazz is one of his chief passions, and he often works in settings which enable improvisers. At the AOC Festival, he'll be the musical director of Carolina Soul, a tribute to North Carolina-born legends Nina Simone, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Roberta Flack. Here's a taste of a performance with his own ensemble.
Read more: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ablogsupreme/2014/04/25/306593465/the-art-of-cool-5-bands-at-the-borders-of-jazz?ft=1&f=10002