The Spirit of Art

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT > FEATURES

A musical gathering in honor of jazz legend Art Blakey this weekend

By Jeff Schwachter

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Mar. 1, 2007

Peering out of the second floor window of his white stucco home on East Mill Street in Northfield, Art Blakey could see nothing but sky and greenery. He used to say it felt like he was in a tree house -- miles away from the hustle and bustle of New York City or Paris.

If the the late musician had peered into the future, however -- say about 30 years -- he couldn't have possibly foreseen the events that would transpire in his temporarily adopted hometown region this weekend.

The Cape Savings Bank Jazz @ The Point festival, March 1-4, being presented as a multi-event tribute to the jazz legend, will honor a man who spent the better part of the 1950s through the 1980s helping to shape (and keep alive) the hard bop side of jazz. While doing so he performed all over the world, recording on hundreds of sessions and, perhaps most significantly, fostering the careers of numerous young jazz players who would become huge forces on the jazz scene themselves -- Clifford Brown, Keith Jarrett and Wynton Marsalis, to name a mere few. Although he was born in Pittsburgh and spent most of his life as a resident of New York City, in 1976, the drummer -- whose friends called him Bu, short for his Muslim name, Abdullah Ibn Buhaina -- moved to Northfield where he would live with his young son, Takashi, and longtime companion Sandy Warren, until the early '80s.

"Art loved it here," says Warren, who now resides in Ocean City. "He loved being part of this little town."

Although he was traveling a lot during the time he lived in Northfield, while in town Blakey frequented local restaurants and shops and loved to picnic in Birch Grove Park and walk the Ocean City Boardwalk. He didn't perform much in the area, but did bring his ever-changinig ensemble, the Jazz Messengers, to Club Harlem in the early 1980s and to the former Gardner's Basin Jazz Festival. He was also known to sit-in at one of the many jazz clubs that used to exist in Atlantic City.

"He was basically a club guy," says Warren. "When we were going into Atlantic City, or going anywhere, like on a night off, we'd go to a jazz club -- and people would ask him to sit in, of course, and then he'd sit in. He was always gracious."

This weekend, a few miles down Shore Road from the house that still sits at the corner of Mill Road in Northfield, the Somers Point Jazz Society will host some of the musicians who performed with Bu in the Jazz Messengers -- and many other notable players who will join together in honor of Blakey, who passed away in 1990 from cancer. The performers at this weekend's annual Jazz @ The Point series (see sidebar) include one-time Jazz Messengers like pianist Sam Dockery and bassists Earl May and Cameron Brown. Renowned Philadelphia bassist Charles Fambrough, who appeared in Blakey's Jazz Messengers from 1980-84, will play with his band at Mac's Restaurant on Saturday night.

During the time that Blakey lived here, Fambrough was a regular performer in Atlantic City nightclubs.

"I used to work in Atlantic City a lot," says Fambrough. "And Art used to hang out at this place called Dino's Upper Lounge and he used to come down and hear me play a lot. And that's how we became real close."

That was in 1980, over 25 years after the first incarnation of the Messengers. Soon after, Fambrough joined the band and traveled the world with the jazz great and an ensemble that included a very young, but impressive Wynton Marsalis.

Fambrough says he learned a lot about surviving on the road while enrolled in the University of Blakey.

"When you're in his band, he shows you ... how to survive on the road," says Fambrough. "A lot of musicians lack that because they never had the experiences of an Art Blakey or someone like that ... it's a learning experience."

Fambrough, who now teaches at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania when not on the road performing, says that Blakey also instilled in him the importance of composing.

The spirit of Art Blakey -- the dedicated musician and loving educator -- will be alive at this weekend's series and for years to come. Proceeds from all events will go to the Foundation for Education fund, which benefits the music programs at Somers Point's three public schools.

"I think that is one of the most important things of all of this," says Warren. "Nobody takes a penny except musicians and sound people -- all of it goes to music education. That's what Art would want to do with the money."

Nick Regine, who, while employed with the Somers Point school system, began the jazz series nine years ago as a way to raise funds for the foundation, has watched both the series and the foundation continue to grow. A lifetime jazz enthusiast, Regine has since retired from the local school system, but volunteers a lot of his time keeping jazz events alive and well in Somers Point.

"Last year we donated close to $8,000 to help the music education program and creative arts program in the schools," says Regine, who is one of several volunteers who runs the series and the affiliated non-profit Somers Point Jazz Society (SPJS).

"It used to be that this was the only jazz that happened each year," says Regine. "Now we have series and workshops all year-round. Our calling is to provide jazz as often as we possibly can."

Regine says that there are about 20 total jazz events slated for Somers Point this year in conjunction with the SPJS.

Page: 1 2 3 |Next