Best of Boston

The Regattabar occasionally offers avant-garde performers like Don Byron or Michael Marcus, but no one would ever confuse with New York’s Knitting Factory. The Institute for Contemporary Art, on the other hand, in cahoots with the recently revived Boston Creative Music Alliance (brainchild of the Pheonix‘s Ed Hazel and onetime ICA affiliate Gillian Levine), has hosted some cutting-edge jazz in the last year. Boston’s fringe fans were treated to acts like John Zorn’s Masada and Henry Threadgill and the Far East Side Band, who came into town in conjunction with the “New Histories” exhibit, up-and-coming pianist Myra Melford, and free jazz masters Matthew Shipp and William Parker. New shows are in the works for the fall. It may be wishful thinking, but we’re calling this a trend.