All That Jazz

Knoxville has its first (in a long time) jazz festival.

Though it’s somewhat under the radar, Knoxville has a thriving jazz scene. In the coming week, the city’s leading musician in the genre, Donald Brown, plus various community organizations are joining forces to shine a spotlight on that scene, in hopes of turning on more of the community to the sultry, unpredictable medium of jazz.

It’s being hailed as the inaugural Jazz Festival, though Brown recalls more informal events being held up until about 10 years ago in Knoxville. The idea to reinstate the festival was first hatched when Brown played at the McGhee Tyson Library in November of 2003 and had an overwhelming reception. About 200 people showed up, according to Nelda Hill, who works in the Sights and Sounds Department of the library. Since then, the idea has been brewing to not only get him to play in conjunction with the public library again, but to find a way to get even more people turned on to jazz. “He’s such a treasure, and I think a lot of Knoxvillians have yet to discover him,” says Hill about Brown. “The library has been expanding its focus especially in the music programs. It’s really gotten more people using the collection…. This is just another way that the library is educating people.”

Tribe One, the blossoming community organization focused on keeping at-risk youngsters out of trouble, is also heavily involved in the Jazz Fest. Its leaders partnered with the library to engineer the sound for the various performances and are also printing the T-shirts and other merchandise at their in-house printing shop, Boom Boom Industries. “It’s something that we’ve always wanted to do, and we think it will be a good tool for us to get involved in the music community because we’re planning on starting a jazz program this year that’s going to be geared toward young people,” says Dexter Murphy, local musician formerly of Gran Torino and program director at Tribe One. Murphy is working alongside City Councilman Chris Woodhull and young people from Magnolia Sound, Tribe One’s new recording studio, in the festival. “It focuses on our motto of empowering the youth by getting them involved in making music—cutting albums, producing, marketing,” says Murphy. “This is all part of Chris Woodhull’s brainchild. We want to have an internship program with at-risk youth getting real life experiences.” (Woodhull was out of town and could not be reached for comment.)

As far as planning the event, Brown says he recruited mostly musicians he’s played or recorded with before. “We wanted to get some young people too, so we got Austin East High School Jazz Band to open up the show for us on Feb. 11,” he says.

Though he says Knoxville’s jazz scene is healthy, especially for a small city, Brown would like to see more diverse crowds coming out to the shows. Asked what appeals to people about jazz, he gives a long but eloquent answer in his smoky voice: “The rhythm, the versatility of the music itself, because jazz encompasses so many different things—blues, classical, rhythm and blues, rock and roll. And, of course, there’s the emphasis on improvisation, which makes it the most spontaneous style of music.”

The festival’s events begin on Thursday, Feb. 9, at 8 p.m. at 4620, with Brown leading a band of Rusty Holloway, Keith Brown and special guest Bill Mobley. Then on Friday, Feb. 10, at 6 p.m., Brown will give a seminar on the history and style of jazz at the East Tennessee Historical Center. Brown and other festival musicians will teach a master class on improvisation on Saturday, Feb. 11 at 1 p.m. at the East Tennessee History Center. The final event will also be on Saturday at 8 p.m. in the James R. Cox Auditorium in UT’s Alumni Building, with Brown and Stephane Belmondo on trumpet, John Ricci on saxophone, Essiet Essiet on bass and Chris Dave on drums. Afterward, a reception will be held at Cha Cha, where Hill predicts, “We’re hoping it ends in a good old-fashioned jazz jam.”—Molly Kincaid