The Gold Sparkle BandIF YOU GO¦ What: Gold Sparkle Band 20-year reunion show.¦ When: 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 14.¦ Where: Barking Legs Theater, 1307 Dodds Ave.¦ Admission: $10.¦ Phone: 423-624-5347.¦ Website: www.barkinglegs.org.
A free-jazz group that blazed a trail from Atlanta to Brooklyn with a series of critically acclaimed albums in the 1990s and 2000s will return to the South for a pair of 20th anniversary shows that include a stop in Chattanooga.
The Gold Sparkle Band will play Friday night, Feb. 14, at Barking Legs Theater. The show is presented by Flying Fingers Productions and the Shaking Ray Levi Society.
The evening's first set will feature the original GSB sextet performing favorites from the past and new compositions in the repertoire. The second set presents an expanded version of GSB with several special guests, including members of Atlanta's 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra and Chattanooga bassist Evan Lipson.
The GSB sextet features reedists Charles Waters and Rob Mallard, trumpeter Roger Ruzow, bassists Andrew Burnes and Chris Riggenbach and percussionist Andrew Barker.
Website All About Jazz says New Yorkers "became enamored with [this] brash group of freewheeling improvisers from Atlanta" in the late 1990s. "The chemistry of their fresh and ambitious style clicked with the New York establishment."
Their freewheeling sound has drawn comparisons to jazz heavyweights such as Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor. Members have collaborated with a who's who in the free-jazz/free-music scene, including Ken Vandermark, John Zorn, Matthew Shipp and Thurston Moore.