Vision Festival Begins Tonight and Kidd Jordan Wednesday Night

 [Vision Festival], the annual avant-jazz series now entering its 13th year, kicks off tonight at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center in lower Manhattan with performances by renowned percussionist Hamid Drake, the Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet and master trumpeter Dave Douglas starting at 7pm.

[Continuing through Sunday the 15th], the festival will encompass spoken-word compositions, dance pieces, video and art installations in addition to a consistent schedule of fierce and cerebral improvised music. If the week’s-worth of sensory overload this event typically serves up seems a little daunting, make sure to attend the Wednesday night show celebrating the career of New Orleans sax legend [Kidd Jordan](http://www.indiejazz.com/ArtistDetail.aspx?ArtistID=122). Chicago AACM founder and fellow saxophone stalwart Fred Anderson will join the guest of honor for one of his four performances, and the home-cooked buffet, served up to a fantastically diverse crowd of jazz-heads, students, fellow musicians, record slingers and the occasional toddler, promises to be fantastic.