When a percussion philosopher assembles his laboratory of sound, the walls between rhythm and melody begin to dissolve. This is music as inquiry rather than statement—four sonic investigators treating Little Jumbo's intimate geometry as a place where questions sound better than answers.
One arrives carrying four decades of conversations between drum heads and the spaces between continents, his sticks having traced rhythmic philosophies from Cologne jazz clubs to circus tent reveries, from teaching halls where young minds learned to bend time to stages where time learned to bend itself. Another brings the gravitational architecture of four strings, building invisible foundations sturdy enough to let everyone else float. A third treats the violin like an open-ended hypothesis, proving that the most interesting discoveries happen when classical training meets a willingness to sound beautifully wrong. And the fourth channels bebop through the lens of political science, his eighty-eight keys reminding us that jazz has always been intellectual discourse disguised as groove.
This isn't a band playing repertoire—it's an ensemble treating the stage like a petri dish where grooves breathe, textures mutate, and curiosity compounds into something that couldn't exist in any single musical tradition. European improvisation meets Appalachian immediacy. Scholarly rigor meets street-level spontaneity. Cirque Du Soleil's theatrical surrealism brushes against Harvard's ivory tower sensibilities, all of it refracted through the prism of musicians who've learned that convention is just another variable to manipulate.
In a room where proximity breeds revelation and every frequency finds its frequency-responder, prepare for an evening where rhythm becomes hypothesis, melody becomes evidence, and four veteran explorers prove that after four decades of making music, the most exciting sound is still the one you haven't heard yet.
Featuring
For over four decades, Alan Hall has been the heartbeat behind some of the most adventurous music on three continents, transforming drum sets into portals between the earthbound and the ethereal. From intimate European clubs with alto saxophone legend Lee Konitz to the surreal theatrical landscapes of Cirque Du Soleil and Teatro Zinzanni, Hall doesn't just keep time—he bends it, stretches it, and occasionally makes it disappear entirely. His sticks have danced behind Paul McCandless's haunting oboe meditations and Art Lande's keyboard explorations, while his seven-year tenure at Berklee College of Music shaped countless young musicians who now carry his rhythmic DNA across the globe. This isn't just a drummer who's logged tens of thousands of miles touring Europe, the USA, and Canada—this is a percussion philosopher who understands that every snare crack and cymbal wash is a conversation between tradition and revolution, between what jazz was and what it could become. His two published drum books and magazine articles serve as love letters to an instrument that, in Hall's hands, becomes less of a timekeeper and more of a time traveler.
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Quinn Sternberg doesn't just play bass—he becomes the gravitational center around which musical solar systems orbit, his four strings serving as the invisible force that holds melody and rhythm in perfect harmonic balance. In Asheville's intimate jazz venues, Sternberg has mastered the art of musical architecture, building rhythmic foundations so sturdy that horn players can stretch toward the stratosphere while drummers explore the outer reaches of syncopation. His upright bass doesn't merely walk—it tells stories with every step, each note choice revealing decades of deep listening to masters like Ray Brown and Ron Carter while forging his own path through the modern jazz landscape. This is bass playing as conversation rather than accompaniment, where Sternberg's melodic sensibilities transform traditional rhythm section roles into something more akin to chamber music, proving that the most profound musical statements often come from the spaces between the obvious beats, where subtlety meets groove and creates something that makes everyone else in the room sound better.
Christian Howes treats the violin like a conversation starter rather than a statement piece. He's as comfortable teaching in a high school orchestra room as he is on stage, and has spent years figuring out how to help string players speak jazz, blues, and whatever else wants to come out. Through his nonprofit Creative Strings, he's created hundreds of free lessons that prove you don't need a pedigree to improvise—just curiosity and a willingness to sound weird for a while. He plays like someone who believes the instrument has more to say than we've let it.
From Nebraska to Harvard to Little Jumbo, Dr. Bill Bares embodies the scholarly soul of jazz—a NEH Distinguished Professor whose academic credentials from Amherst College read like a jazz education manifesto written in political science and piano poetry. When a lip injury ended his All-American trumpet dreams, Bares discovered that sometimes life's detours lead to destinations you never knew you were seeking. Now directing jazz studies at UNC Asheville after teaching stints at Harvard, Brown, Berklee, and the New England Conservatory, he transforms every performance into a master class where bebop meets book learning, where chord changes become cultural commentary. His scholarly articles in American Music and Jazz Research Journal prove that the deepest musical truths emerge when academic rigor meets artistic passion, making every Little Jumbo appearance a reminder that jazz isn't just entertainment—it's American intellectual history told in real time through eighty-eight keys.
Admission
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