A cozy crowd of about 60 gathered in the Library Auditorium at Bucks on Saturday, Sept. 20 to hear the first of three jazz concerts that will be held as part of the “Jazz at Bucks” program.
The Mike Kennedy Quartet (www.kennedymusic.com) opened this year’s concert series with songs from their critically acclaimed CD, “Quartet #1,” playing seven pieces total for over an hour and a half. The group, a local concoction of Philadelphia jazz and culture, defines their style as a “mixture of 60’s bee-bop and rhythm & blue’s”, says the group.
Their CD, which was recorded in 2001, has been distributed widely within the region, even appearing as far away as Canada and Europe. It has earned the group rave reviews from jazzreview.com, and garnered them much praise from Tony Rogers, a journalism professor here at Bucks who formed the Jazz series.
“I really enjoyed [the concert]… [The group] had a laid back, west coast, cool kind of sound,” said Rogers following the concert.
Though the turnout was good, many were surprised to not see more students taking advantage of the event. Especially music majors – who would have found the concert especially beneficial and entertaining (considering there’s not much available Jazz in Bucks County, and none at the prices that are offered for the concert series). Ari Mannheimer, 19, a first semester music major here at Bucks, didn’t know why other music students didn’t show up. “I heard about the event from an article in the Courier and decided to check it out.”
The next concert in the jazz at Bucks series will be a holiday concert on Saturday, Nov. 29 featuring the Eric Mintel Quartet, which performed at Bucks in last year’s “Jazz at Bucks” concert series. The group will perform songs from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and will host a workshop before the concert which will educate participants on how Jazz groups communicate when on the stage.
As Rogers put it, “everyone’s heard of the ‘Charlie Brown Christmas,'” and those themes come right from Guaraldi, a jazz pianist responsible for writing a number of popular jazz tunes.
The year’s final act comes at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 24, 2004 from The Philadelphia Heritage Art Ensemble. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, this fine group of musicians proves that, “the Philly sound in Jazz still lives.”
The band looks to play some of the dynamic and creative music from their latest CD, “Under the Bridge.” The Ensemble will be participating in a pre-concert workshop.
Rogers got interested in jazz as a kid when he heard his father’s varied collection of jazz records. Though Rogers turned away from jazz in his teenage years, he returned to the natural, complex, and subtle art of jazz in his 30s.
“The last five years or so, I started getting back into jazz…The thing about jazz is that it really is best experienced live [with] really great solos, etc…. Occasionally, I got out to see live bands, but at 40, it’s tough to get out to clubs,” Rogers said.
At an outing to a weekend-long festival held at a community college in Syracuse, New York, inspiration overtook Rogers. Though the Syracuse festival took place on a much larger scale, Rogers got to thinking, “If they [the organizers of the Syracuse jazz festival] can do it, then why can’t we at Bucks?”
So Rogers contacted Jonathan Lee, head of theatre and community programming at Bucks. Lee liked the idea of a jazz series and agreed to fund it through his office. Rogers contacted local professional jazz musicians to play, and had little trouble finding willing participants since “there’s just so much talent out there.”
Ben Schacter and his Trio of Many christened the beginning of the Jazz at Bucks program with the first concert on Friday, Nov. 15, 2002. Since that time, the Michael Hoffman Quartet and the Eric Mintel Quartet both entertained crowds of upwards of 250 people, which is pretty amazing considering the auditorium only holds 345.
“I would like to keep the concert series going. Now that word has gotten out about the series, I’ve gotten musicians calling me up… That’s the sad thing about jazz; there are never enough venues,” Rogers said.
Further down the road, Rogers also hopes to start a full-fledged jazz festival like the one he experienced at Syracuse.
“If we’re successful and can really develop a big audience for this, then maybe it can really develop into a full-blown festival. I already know of some spots that would be a great setting for this,” Rogers said.
For more information on the Jazz at Bucks series, visit www.bucks.edu/jazz