“We want the audience to notice the love that takes place in making every second,” is what Jazz musician Larry Coryell said in an interview just before taking the Zlock Performing Arts Center stage at Bucks County Community College this past Thursday, September 8th, 2016. The artist, along with his two friends, Dylan Taylor and Mike Clark, would be playing selections from Taylor’s album, “One In Mind,” to be released in the lobby after the show that evening.
The album, originally slated to be titled “Winter Storm,” was recorded at Forge Recording, a studio in Oreland, Pennsylvania, during a terrible snow storm the previous winter. It nearly didn’t come to pass due to the extreme weather, but Coryell and the group attribute its completion to the strength gained from their faith. The artists are devout Nichiren Buddhists, and found that their chanting was the key to weathering the ordeal of putting the recording together.
In coming to Bucks, Coryell stated his goal is to convert students to jazz. This is his first college performance, which seem to have happened by accident. Taylor, who is a friend of Jeff Baumeister, Associate Professor of Music at the school, was asked to play for the student concerts. In turn, Taylor invited his friends Clark and Coryell to join him in the affair.
The music, at its base, is pure spontaneous fun. It’s created in the moment, and always different; never exactly the same. Coryell describes jazz music as a meld of African emotion, western harmony and European tradition. In such a divided society as the one we live in currently, the group believes that the music they create has the capacity to bring people together in the same way that all the varying components and influences of jazz come together. If jazz were more prevalent in our society today, suggests Coryell, we might find the ability to love more despite all of these differences.
The group played a wide selection of styles throughout the concert, and if you listened close enough, you could hear the range of cultural influences in each song. Some of the songs they played for the audience that evening were Hittin’ And Missin’, Jem’n’eye’n, and Loft Funk. They also played a cover of a song by the well-known Duke Ellington called “In A Sentimental Mood,” which was specifically dedicated to a friend in the audience. After the show, the group proceeded to the lobby to meet their audience, sell, and sign copies of their new album. One man was heard proclaiming to Clark through the crowd, “you were tap-dancing on those drums, man!”
To the band, jazz is not simply a style of music, but an entire way of life. What Coryell hopes students and audience members will take from their music in particular is very simple — happiness, joy, and a respect for artistry. After the interview, Larry turned to his bandmates and said, “We are ambassadors!”
The music series put on by the school will continue on Thursday, October 6th, 2016, with Fresh Cut Orchestra in the Zlock Performing Arts Center. As a 10-piece jazz ensemble from Philadelphia, this group’s performance will offer up another chance to get acquainted with this beautiful and underrated style of music.