The event on Sunday, March 15, has been canceled
The Nashville Jazz Workshop, in collaboration with the Frist Art Museum, announces the 14th season of the popular jazz performance and education series, Jazz on the Move. Each installment features a lecture and performance highlighting a major figure or period in jazz history. Presented by Nashville’s top jazz artist/educators, the series offers audiences world class music as well as an opportunity to learn more about jazz. The series begins Sunday, January 19 at 3:00 pm, and features a tribute to Freddie Hubbard led by trumpeter Jamey Simmons.
Other artists featured are Betty Carter (featuring a performance by Dara Tucker), Sonny Rollins (featuring Rahsaan Barber) and Bud Powell (with music performed by Bruce Dudley).
Sponsors for the series are The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, the Carolyn Kulkin Fund for Education and Community, Peter & Anne Neff, Caterpillar Financial Services, and New City Properties.
The programs take place on a series of Sunday afternoons. All performances are at 3:00 p.m. in the auditorium at the Frist Art Museum, 919 Broadway, Nashville, TN. Performances in the series are free and open to the public. Each performance is led by a jazz artist intimately familiar with the jazz great being profiled with an outstanding group of supporting musicians.
Remaining presentations in this year’s series are:
Sunday, March 15 – The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins, with Rahsaan Barber — CANCELED — WILL BE RESCHEDULED
Sonny Rollins has been called “the greatest living improvisor,” and his 1956 album Saxophone Colossus has become the artist’s well-deserved nickname. His career spans the eras of bebop, hard bop, free jazz, and has extended to the modern era . . . he only recently retired from touring in 2012 at the age of 81. His composition are among the most played of modern jazz standards, and include “St. Thomas,” “Doxy,” “Valse Hot,” and Sonnymoon for Two.” An NEA Jazz Master since 2013, Rollins maintains a modest outlook. Despite his many awards (including a 2013 designation as an NEA Jazz Master), he usually simply maintained he was “still trying to get better.”
Nashville saxophonist Rahsaan Barber is one of the city’s most accomplished musicians. A graduate of Indiana University’s jazz program, where he studied with Dr. David Baker, he went on to receive a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music and is currently working on a doctorate from the University of Memphis. Since his return to Nashville 10 years ago, Rahsaan has been a successful bandleader and touring and recording artist, and serves as Vice President of the Tennessee Jazz and Blues Society. Rahsaan’s previous Jazz on the Move presentations have included programs on John Coltrane and Miles Davis.
Sunday, April 19 – The Life and Music of Bud Powell, with Bruce Dudley — CANCELED
Pianist Bud Powell was a leading figure in the development of bebop in the 1940’s. A virtuoso instrumentalist, he is credited with adapting the style of Charlie Parker to the piano. A brilliant composer as well, his writings are among the most imaginative in modern jazz. An early protégé of Thelonious Monk, Powell was a regular participant in the bebop sessions at Minton’s Playhouse, and appeared on classic recordings with Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Max Roach. Considered a troubled genius, Powell had frequent legal problems and psychiatric hospitalizations, and he apparently never recovered from a beating by police early in his career. From 1959 to 1963 he lived in Paris, where he continued to perform and record. He returned to New York in 1964, where he died from tuberculosis and alcoholism in 1966, at the age of 41.
A brilliant jazz pianist, composer, and educator, Bruce Dudley received his doctorate from the University of Colorado and serves on the faculty of Belmont University, Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music, and the Nashville Jazz Workshop. Bruce has made a study of Bud Powell’s music and improvisational style and has taught classes on this at the NJW.
Those attending Jazz on the Move at the Frist will be able to visit the Frist’s exhibits free of charge, and will also receive discounted parking. The Frist Art Museum Visitor Parking Lot fills quickly on Sundays, so patrons are encouraged to carpool, rideshare, or use public transport.
