Music thrives on the west end of town. Old New Orleans and present-day Milwaukee are two fine examples.
The lakeshore resort area known to New Orleanians as “West End” dates back to 1835. As a popular spot to throw birthday parties, hold company picnics or catch vaudeville shows, West End (and other popular lakeshore locations like Milneburg) was a reliable employer of New Orleans’ many brass bands who were beginning to play in a contrapuntal ensemble style that took trains North during the ‘teens and got saddled with the name “jazz.” Besides being a steady gig, West End was one of the few places where black and white musicians could hear one another play in the highly segregated city. As a nexus for the exchange of musical ideas the significance of West End and other lake resorts cannot be overstated in the development of jazz and the development of twentieth century popular music in general. Appropriate then that when young Louis Armstrong was codifying the next steps in jazz’s evolution, he and His Hot Five immortalized the spot in a 1928 recording of West End Blues.
Despite only having been founded in 2013, Milwaukee's West End Conservatory has been staging shows that would be the envy of any Chicago or New York club. The venue is a testing ground for Milwaukee’s promising young jazz talent and the host of internationally touring improvisers.
|
|
On Saturday, February 6, the West End Conservatory will host celebrated jazz trio the Bad Plus in an all-acoustic, intimate setting. “Jazz,” as generally understood, is arguably too restrictive a term for the Bad Plus’ wide-ranging musical activities. Their repertoire is weighted in favor of original compositions and, while they play the occasional standard, the group is celebrated for adventurous reinventions of well-known tunes that are selected with a refreshing disregard for genre-lines. A perusal of the groups’ discography shows covers of David Bowie, Radiohead, Burt Bacharach, Igor Stravinsky and the theme from “Chariots of Fire.”
Tickets ($25) are available at the door for the Bad Plus’ 9 p.m. set (the 7 p.m. set has already sold out), and includes access to a Q&A session with the trio from 5:30-6:30 p.m.
