Outsiders Festival jazzes up the metaverse - The Philadelphia Inquirer

As I participate the Ropeadope Lounge, Jamaaladeen Tacuma glides crossed the country to greet me, decked successful a crimson overgarment and agleam yellowish pants accented by sky-blue glasses. The colorful outfit is thing retired of the mean for Tacuma, who is astir arsenic well-known for his eye-popping manner consciousness arsenic helium is for his virtuosic, avant-funky bass playing. For once, the remainder of him is arsenic animated arsenic his wardrobe — we’re gathering successful a virtual world abstraction that volition big a assemblage of avatars this play for a show by Tacuma’s trio Strings & Things.

The antithetic concert, which volition instrumentality spot successful beforehand of a soma and humor assemblage astatine the Painted Bride’s caller West Philly home, is the item of this year’s Outsiders Improvised & Creative Music Festival, which Tacuma has hosted since 2015. While the in-person attendees bask a accepted unrecorded euphony experience, assemblage members tin be virtually to presumption a livestream wrong the metaverse and mingle with 1 different arsenic good as, pursuing the show, set members.

“The full conception of the Outsiders is that we’re consistently moving,” Tacuma explained via a somewhat much accepted Zoom meeting. “When we archetypal started our festival, we started disconnected with 1 marathon concert. [Now we have] a abstraction disposable wherever radical from each astir the satellite could travel to the concert. We spot truthful galore possibilities.”

Saturday’s virtual performance volition beryllium hosted by grounds statement and media institution Ropeadope, which launched its metaverse lounge earlier this year. ”With the metaverse, I had the aforesaid benignant of apprehension that anyone would. Am I truly going to enactment connected goggles and vanish from the world?” said Ropeadope CEO Louis Marks. “But erstwhile I went successful and began to talk to the radical — existent radical — I realized that it’s thing much than a website wherever I tin really speech to the radical that travel and look astatine it.”

Tacuma shared Marks’ archetypal trepidation. His archetypal acquisition with virtual world came via a Ropeadope listening enactment for Free Form Funky Freqs, the trio of Tacuma, drummer G. Calvin Weston, and Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid. Tacuma strapped connected a VR headset and waded into the crowd: “I walked into the abstraction and started moving my caput and they were like, ‘Oh, damn. There’s Jamaal. The vibe is conscionable similar him!’ We were won over.”

Marks sees that quality to beryllium physically represented and expressively communicative wrong the virtual abstraction arsenic the aboriginal of the net itself. “I abruptly realized that the astir isolating acquisition is what we’ve been doing: staring astatine our phones oregon going to a website connected our machine … Having the accidental to speech to a jazz instrumentality successful London oregon Mongolia is acold superior to conscionable pushing worldly retired connected Twitter and hoping that radical volition spot it.”

The bassist’s woman and concern manager, Rahima Tacuma, sees the imaginable for a much inclusive performance acquisition successful the future. “There are truthful galore reasons wherefore it could beryllium utilized for radical that can’t spell out, who person a phobia astir going outside, oregon who can’t walk. Now they’re successful [the virtual realm] and they’re escaped and walking oregon flying astir and having a bully time.”

“The conception is to person a balance,” Tacuma added. “Folks volition beryllium capable to spell into [VR] and bask that and past travel retired successful the satellite and bask that arsenic well. But determination are things that you tin bash successful determination that marque it amusive — and we request fun.”

The remainder of the 8th Outsiders Festival is the much acquainted unrecorded model. It kicked disconnected past play with a brace of concerts astatine South and volition reason Dec. 2 with a tribute to writer and activistic Jayne Cortez astatine the Community Education Center. Saturday’s performance volition statesman with a screening of a erstwhile Tacuma show and diagnostic his Strings & Things trio, with guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Tomas Fujiwara.

The Outsiders Improvised & Creative Music Festival continues 6 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 19, astatine the Painted Bride Arts Center, 5212 Market St. Tickets: www.eventbrite.com/e/429792148887. Information for accessing the Ropeadope Lounge: ropeadope.com/rcc/2022/6/20/the-ropeadope-lounge-getting-started.

The festival concludes with “Power to the Poets” astatine 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 2, astatine the Community Education Center, 3500 Lancaster Ave. Tickets: www.eventbrite.com/e/outsiders-improvised-creative-music-fest-presents-power-to-the-poets-tickets-430277861667