Unpacking Big Ears: The Mary Halvorson Sets

One of the many delights of the Big Ears experience is the opportunity to see and hear musicians perform multiple times, playing in different settings, on different stages, with different bands. 2026 was no exception and I was able to experience "the delightful and gifted weirdness of Mary Halvorson’s playing" (Marc Ribot's description) three times, once in each of the first three days of the festival. 

Halvorson's sound is difficult to describe yet immediately recognizable once encountered. In addition to being a great guitarist, she's also a dedicated composer and bandleader, as willing to take the lead as let her playing provide background atmospherics behind her bandmates. 

Big Ears 2026 opened for me with a performance by Ches Smith's Clone Row, a two-guitar band comprised of (l. to r.) Liberty Ellman, bassist Nick Dunston, Halvorson (in the Cruella deVille coat)  and Smith on drums, vibraphone, and electronics. 

The twin guitars bounced off of each other, played in counterpoint, and played in unison. The result was neither punk nor funk nor John Zorn thrash but something altogether unique and different, an angular fusion of jazz and chamber. Here they are at Public Records in Brooklyn back on October 5 of last year:

Later that night, Halvorson and Smith played again, this time in guitarist Marc Ribot's Shrek ensemble, which also featured bassist Sebastian Steinberg and second drummer Chad Taylor, but I missed that show in order to catch the first night of SML's three-night residency (one of many painful Big Ears decisions). 

On Day Two, Friday, a surprise, "secret show" was announced of Halvorson duetting with Ribot. Like her playing with Ellman in Clone Row, Halvorson bent and twisted her lines in and around Ribot's undulating lines, and while they both had sheet music in front of them, the set was marked by the improvisations between the compositional portions. At one point, Ribot switched to ukulele and performed a straightforward rendition of Goodnight Irene, which Halvorson made much more interesting by adding ambient, outer-spacey tones beneath it. The always outspoken Ribot provided one of the more pointedly political statements of the festival by reading a text by Nelson Mandela, admitting to the use of sabotage after the repressive South African regime had taken away every other means of protest and change away from the people. (The next day was No Kings Day and Ribot lead a group of protesters from the festival to a local protest after a signing event that Saturday.)           

I couldn't find any duet samples of Halvorson and Ribot to share, but below is a 2014 video from a set of Mary performing with a Ribot trio that also included Henry Grimes (bass and violin) and drummer Chad Taylor. The context is different than their stripped-down, Big Ears performance, but the playing of the two guitarists is similar to what I heard last week. 

 

Finally, on Saturday, Day Three, Halvorson presented her new quartet, Canis Major, in one of their rare  performances. Canis Major consists of Mary (l., below) along with (l. to r.) bassist Henry Fraser, drummer Tomas Fujiwara, and young trumpeter Dave Adewumi. Leading her own ensemble, this set was her major showcase event of the weekend and presented in Knoxville's beautiful Tennessee Theater, the largest venue of the festival.. 

Much of the time, Halvorson seemed content to play in the background, providing atmospherics behind Adewumi's lovely playing. One of the many notable features of the set was Mary's use of a loop pedal, an effect I don't think I've seen her use in the past. It's wonderful to see a performer of her stature at the top of her craft continue to expand her repertoire and technique. Another revelation was the playing of Adewumi, who I understand will be releasing his own debut album on Nonesuch Records sometime later this year. Here's Canis Major in their debut performance in New York back in March of 2025. 

While in line between performances, three of four audiences members separately told me that they had earlier met Mary's parents at the festival. Some said they were talking about her performance while waiting on other lines at other sets before the couple proudly announced, "We're her parents," and another said he was struck by the physical resemblance of the mother to Mary and asked her if she was somehow related. They should be proud - their daughter is a major talent and a true vanguard of the current, 21st Century jazz and creative-music renaissance.