A Trip to New York City
& Oliver Nelson Being Honored
at Long Island's Jazz Loft
Rob and I headed down to New York City last Thursday evening. It was our first business trip in a little over two years, which for us was an eternity. Having grown up in nearby northern New Jersey attending sports events, Broadway shows, and concerts, and enjoying New York City's vibrance in all ways, seeing the city largely closed down for so long was especially difficult. This trip showed us in person that despite the oft-repeated statments to the contrary, New York City is back and recovering quite well.
Our first order of business was many more hours of research into the music of jazz piano pioneer and pop music superstar Nat King Cole. We have published many of his classic arrangements and are very pleased that many more will become available in the coming months. We then headed out to Stony Brook, Long Island, New York for our first visit to The Jazz Loft. The Jazz Loft opened in 2016 and was founded by our friend Dr. Tom Manuel. Tom is a jazz Renaissance man; teaching, composing, leading bands and orchestras, traveling the world to make it a better place via music, and devoting his career to working to raise the profile of jazz in as many ways as possible. The Jazz Loft is in a historic building, and is part museum, part preservation archive, part educational pioneer, part performance space, and in all parts magnificent.
Tom had a vision of creating a destination location that would celebrate jazz in a variety of ways. Previously the Suffolk Museum and then the Garden Exchange, The Jazz Loft uses this space to offer something to jazz fans young and old. Wandering the rooms one sees jazz treasures from all eras, from classic pictures to artifacts of jazz greats. There are also lectures and classes dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of jazz, as well as lessons to strengthen improvisation. But as is inherently the case with jazz, it is performance that is at the heart of The Jazz Loft.
The performance space is on the second floor and was well conceived: small and intimate, yet still comfortable. The evening was called the Kennedy Dream Project, celebrating one of jazz legend Oliver Nelson's more ambitious suites, based on the life and promise of President John F. Kennedy. The Kennedy Dream is an eight movement work that Nelson himself was very happy with. Nelson loved classical music and was very influenced by it, and The Kennedy Dream vividly showed the direction he was moving in. Designed to celebrate JFK's ideas regarding how America's diversity influenced its strength and how important freedom for all was in realizing this to its full potential, The Kennedy Dream is a moving work. As any realistic work regarding JFK would have to, it has its moments of joyful glee as well as its serious side, and somber tones as well. Tom Manuel led a large jazz orchestra in conducting it; a full big band with strings who took to the difficult task quite well. Not an easy work to play, they were clearly well-rehearsed and brought the music to life via tight ensemble playing and fine soloing. Tom led the band with his infectious sense of enthusiasm and joy. Seeing a work like this come alive - along with speakers reading excerpts from JFK speeches as presented in the original recording - was a combination jazz experience and history lesson; exactly what one would expect from a place with the aspirations of The Jazz Loft.
After an intermission, the band played through nine new works from Tom and band members Jeff Lederer, Ray Anderson, and Stephen Salerno, as well as a personal tribute to his father from guest artist Oliver Nelson Jr. We approached Oliver Jr. over a decade ago during the early years of Jazz Lines Publications with the desire of publishing some of his father's music. He graciously entrusted us with this honor and privilege, and we are proud to publish The Kennedy Dream, along with all of the charts from The Blues and the Abstract Truth, and many more of his dad's arrangements. He dedicates his professional life to jazz education and the labor of love of constantly working to burnish and extend the reach of his father's already massive legacy. He contributed a piece called Blues for Dear Old Dad, a tribute to his father based on their mutual love of cartoons. The title comes from elements of the Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy cartoons, where Augie would call his father "Dear Old Dad." Young Oliver would address his father the same way and they both got a big kick out of it. According to Oliver Jr., to further personalize it, he wrote it in C minor and in 5/4 time, as his dad loved minor keys and experimenting with different time signatures. He also cleverly incorporated one of the jazz exercises from his father's seminal Patterns for Improvisation book into the song as well. As they say, the acorn does not fall far from the tree; in this case, compositional creativity most definitely did not skip a generation! The packed house thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the performance, and showed it with constant affectionate reactions. Seeing a room full of people enjoying America's greatest original art form, and in person as was the case prior to the last two historically difficult years, was very uplifting. It was easy to feel the joy in the room, and quickly remember how important it is to be together with others live and in person. All of this combined with a program of classic historic jazz and new compositions made it an evening that all present will surely remember quite vividly.
We thank Oliver Nelson Jr. and Dr. Tom Manuel; two figures who have become serious presences in the American jazz scene. As jazz publishers and historians, we join the legions of students, researchers, musicians, and jazz aficionados who owe so much to these two men for their dedication to preserving, protecting, and enhancing all that jazz has been, is, and will be far into the future.
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