It’s with a heavy heart that I announce the Jazz Estate is putting a moratorium on live music while undergoing personnel changes. The hiatus is of indefinite length, but the bartender with whom I spoke sounded confident that concerts would resume in the near future. For over thirty years, the legendary Milwaukee jazz joint has played host to the biggest blowers in the city, state, nation and even world. The Jazz Estate has attracted attention from the jazz community at large, earning a spot in Downbeat’s 2014 International Jazz Venue Guide.
Before the stage falls silent, the Jazz Estate will be hosting the thirty-first installment of Unrehearsed MKE on Sunday, August 2, at 7:30 p.m. Unrehearsed MKE is a monthly series in which the city’s finest improvisers gather in unusual groupings and, without having first rehearsed, launch into musical dialogue.
Long-time Unrehearsed mainstay, guitarist Jay Mollerskov had this to say about the series, “Unrehearsed MKE has been a major unifying force for improvising musicians throughout the city and has introduced improvised music to many new audiences. When I first moved to Milwaukee and began playing free-improvised music in the mid-Nineties, the scene consisted of a very small handful of musicians. Steve Nelson-Raney, Hal Rammel and Thomas Gaudynski would perform regularly and I, along with a handful of fellow students, started listening and joining in when possible. Now, twenty years later, it is exciting to see dozens of musicians improvising regularly for a steadily growing audience! This improvised music scene in Milwaukee largely grew out of Unrehearsed MKE, which brought together musicians from Milwaukee's jazz, new music, classical, and electronic music scene. The improvised music scene now also includes several other monthly series including the Formations Series for New & Improvised Music at Woodland Pattern, the Vanguard free-improv jam sessions at Frank's Power Plant, and Seed Sounds at the Jazz Gallery. Each monthly series has a different approach or way of presenting improvised music, but I think they all owe their existence to the seeds planted at Unrehearsed. Having played improvised music for a couple decades now, it's exciting to see how much things have grown in Milwaukee recently. Moving forward, I hope we can spread this music farther abroad while continuing to share this truly creative movement with more curious ears here at home.”
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Unrehearsed MKE #31 consists of the following three groups:
A)
David Collins - Tenor Saxophone
Blake Manning - Tenor Saxopone
Rick Ollman - Reeds
Molly Lieberman - Viola
B)
Michael Neumeyer - vibes
Julianne Frey - voice
Ari Moosavi - percussion
C)
Sean Behling - Tenor Sax/ Electronics
Paul Gaudynski - Acoustic Piano
Jason Wietlispach – Reeds
It’s high time to show the Jazz Estate some love, Milwaukee. Whether you are a jazz fan or not, the Estate is worth a visit for its hip, low-key atmosphere. Doing so does not require going out of one’s way: located at 2423 N. Murray Ave., the bar is a stone’s throw from the Oriental Theatre and the heart of East Side nightlife. Drop in for a drink and let the Jazz Estate’s proprietors know that Milwaukee does not take its cultural treasures for granted. Before you know it, the jubilant sounds of live jazz will be spilling into the street once more.
