Music
It might drive a local jazz fan insane to find out that three of the best concerts of the season will all be held on April 8, 30 to 70 miles from one another. But rather than whining and trying to point fingers at the guilty parties, maybe it’s better to take a look at how this predicament took shape and appreciate the opportunity to attend even one of the shows.
The final event in the Nashville Jazz Workshop’s annual all-day session of clinics and panels will be a concert featuring soul-jazz sax player Houston Person and drummer Ed Thigpen. At MTSU’s year-end concert in its Jazz Artist Series, alto great Phil Woods will play with the Middle Tennessee Jazz Orchestra, an ensemble made up of faculty, grad students and top area players. APSU will host a similar event on the final night of its Mid-South Jazz Festival, with the outstanding pianist Kenny Barron leading a somewhat unconventional quartet that has flute player Anne Drummond as the sole woodwind voice on top of the rhythm section.
True, only the most die-hard jazz aficionados would trek from Murfreesboro to Clarksville or vice versa. But there may be a larger potential audience, literally based in the “middle ground” of Davidson or Williamson County, who could attend all three concerts, if only they’d been held on different dates.
Overall, it’s not really hard to figure out the reasons for this most unharmonic of convergences. All jazz programs naturally have capstone events at the end of the year, when students presumably have reached their highest state of competence. For college programs, these concerts inevitably follow the first rites of spring, that ephemeral point before students take final exams or make early departures from campus, and may have to be scheduled during the only weekend before other programs make a bid for theater or instructional spaces. Major visiting artists lend a certain sanction to these proceedings, which can also end an entire day or two of clinics, workshops and competitions.
From the fan’s point of view, the artists who are headlining all three events carry an unmistakable aura. The four visiting performers have proven their mettle from their first professional days by being able to cut it with the greats of previous, pioneering eras, having “been there,” for example, with Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Oscar Peterson and Gene Ammons. If they’ve been leaders, they’ve more than reciprocated by helping to usher in the talent of future generations. Add to this the respect they’ve continued to receive over several decades from their peers, who would quickly testify that their playing rises well above the journeyman level, if not to a certain esoteric stardom within jazz circles.
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In the case of Woods, the artist with the richest aura, there’s no need to look very far. Having played with everyone who’s mattered since he came up in the late ’40s, including a turn in Monk’s nonet, he’s also brought his two current sidemen (among many others), pianist Bill Charlap and trumpeter Brian Lynch, into wider circles of appreciation. In a phone interview, he shrugs off critics who’ve seen him as the most faithful heir of Charlie Parker, claiming that anyone who’s reached his level inherits a multi-generational family legacy of jazz voices, as if they’re all members of an elect tribe.
Woods plays MTSU’s Hinton Hall at 7:30 p.m. and is booked with his quintet for the Main St. Jazz Festival in Murfreesboro on May 6. Barron plays in the Music/Theater Building at APSU at 7:30 p.m., and Thigpen and Person play at the Belcourt, 8:00 p.m. (Information regarding the all-day clinics is available at www.nashvillejazz.org.)