Day of the World Course, 34th of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Aldebaran): Another beautiful, pitch-perfect day here in paradise, this earthly Eden we call "Atlanta." Temperatures in the mid-70s, humidity - 44%, the dew point a mere 54°. It wasn't a walking day today but I still got outside as much as possible, at least when I wasn't polishing mirrors and warming cushions.

It didn't hurt my appreciation of the day at all that today is my equivalent of a child's Christmas morning. Today, the lineup for the 2026 Big Ears festival in Knoxville, Tennessee was released, and good lord, is it loaded! 

John Zorn, who dominated the festival in 2022 and 2023, makes a welcome return to the lineup with twelve performances, including two by the original lineup of the first iteration of his Masada quartet of the early 1990s (Zorn, Dave Douglas, Greg Cohen, and Joey Baron). There's also going to be a duet set with Laurie Anderson (who's also doing two other sets of her own), a trio of Zorn, John Medeski (of Medeski, Martin & Wood), and Dave Lombardo (of Slayer). and a large-ensemble performance of his game piece, Cobra, featuring  Medeski, Lombardo, Wendy Eisenberg, Celine Kang, Brian Marsella, Jay Campbell, Jorge Roeder, Simon Hanes, Ikue Mori, Sae Hashimoto, Ches Smith, William Winant, and Kenny Wollesen, with others probably joining to get in on the fun.

That would be enough to excite me right there. Okay. I'm hooked - you had me at "Zorn." But the festival will also include sets by David Byrne, Robert Plant, Flying Lotus, and Pat Metheny (who I don't think I've seen since 1988). All of my other favorite jazz guitarists are playing too - Marc Ribot, Julien Lage, Nels Cline, Mary Halvorson, even John Scofield.  

OG downtown legend Charlemagne Palestine is even playing. Palestine is one of those almost mythical figures who started his career at age 12 playing bongos for Allen Ginsberg and pre-Laugh In Tiny Tim, went on to compose and perform alongside minimalism founder La Monte Young, studied under renowned Indian classical singer Pandit Pran Nath, and taught alongside Morton Subotnick. More recently, he's collaborated with musicians from Orin Ambarchi to Michael Gira. His Strumming Music from 1974 was a nearly hour-long solo piano composition that was so intense that his fingers would be bleeding by the end. I never imagined I'd actually get to see him perform.

There are several performers in the lineup I've seen several times before (e.g., Mary Lattimore, Julianna Barwick, Walt McClements, Kishi Bashi), but am always glad to see again.

And all that is literally just the tip of the iceberg. There are dozens - scores - more performers and sets, including several more must-sees, other intriguing musicians, and dozens I've never even heard of but am looking forward to discovering and learning about.  

Now, comes the hard work - even though I'm trying to ween myself off Spotify, I've made myself a Spotify playlist of the most recent or the most representative album by each and every performer. There's over 1,500 tracks on the playlist and the running length is over 120 hours, but I'll be winnowing it down as I listen through over the next several weeks and deleting the albums by artists I can tell I'll have no interest in seeing. But if you want to hear a diverse and fearless playlist of the state of cutting-edge music today, or to plan your own Big Ears adventure, you can hear the playlist here.