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THE UNTOLD STORY OF VIRGINIA'S DEEP ROOTS IN THE GREAT AMERICAN ART FORM
Marcus Tenney
&
Devonne Harris

Jazz, Baby!

You may not know it, but Virginia has deep roots in the evolution of this uniquely American art form. A new exhibition at the Valentine museum in Richmond pays tribute to the state's jazz greatsartists whose sound has influenced generations of musicians. Here, we tell their stories and meet the contemporary performers who keep the beat alive.

story by

DON HARRISON

contemporary portraits by ADAM EWING

STORY

Forgive me if I don't have the words. Maybe I can sing it and you'll understand.

 Ella Fitzgerald

"I often wonder what would have happened had she not brought the piano home that day," master jazz pianist Don Pullen (1941-1995) said about his days growing up in Roanoke in the early '50s. As an 11-year-old, he took lessons from the no-nonsense piano teacher Mrs. Whitlock, played in the First Baptist Church, and eventually formed his own jazz band at Booker T. Washington High School. He also found a mentor in cousin Clyde "Fats" Wright, a former Charlie Parker and Dinah Washington sideman.

“Clyde was a real, bona fide jazz pianist,” Pullen said in a 1994 interview with the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program, remembering nights he apprenticed in clubs along Roanoke’s Henry Street. “He’d take me with him and always let me play a number or two on his gigs, so I was like his shadow. ... and I play a lot like him, even now.” 

Before his death, the fiercely independent pianist would become one of jazz music’s most fiery (even avant-garde) soloists, an international figure expanding the boundaries of a form that has no boundaries. But he always kept a little Roanoke in his sound.

Pullen’s is but one of the stories found in a exhibition at the Valentine museum in Richmond that showcases the sizable contributions of Virginians to the formation and growth of the art of jazz.

Curated by the Richmond Jazz Society, Jazz in Virginia: The Early Years is an ear-and-eye-popping assemblage of rare artist photos, newly-researched bios and scarcely-seen film footage that details the many legendary singers, horn players, guitarists, bassists and producers—trafficking in everything from big band music to light jazz—who have hailed from across Virginia’s state map. 

Thanks to the exhibition, we can see firsthand that Virginia, even in unlikely hamlets like Lawrenceville, Bedford and, yes, Roanoke, has been one of jazz music’s most fertile growing fields. And these sounds live on. 

In the Beginning

“I think Virginia had a transportation connection that helped to spread the music around the state,” says B.J. Brown, curator of Jazz in Virginia and executive director of the Richmond Jazz Society. Whether it was through riverboats and railroads, or the popular sheet music that began to circulate, she says, Richmond was one place that fell early and hard for the new “jass” music coming from New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century.  The clubs and speakeasies along 2nd Street formed a regional epicenter, earning Jackson Ward the moniker “The Harlem of the South.”

 

“Even in the late 1890s, there was a vibrant music community in Jackson Ward,” Brown says. “There was a place called the Reformers Building, and they had military bands, it was right there near the clubs, and the musicians from the military bands would play with other musicians and that’s where I think, for Richmond, the synergy began. There was a lot of music going on at that time.”

When jazz came along, ragtime music and minstrelsy, two components that were building blocks for the earliest jazz, had long been popular among blacks and whites in Virginia. 

“The syncopated rhythms you hear in ragtime were kind of a predecessor of what became typical in the music,” says John Toomey, chairman of the music department at Norfolk’s Old Dominion University and a jazz pianist who has toured with Maynard Ferguson and René Marie. “Jazz is jazz because traditional African music, over a period of time, merged with traditional American and European music. You put those styles together, they influence the other, and something new is going to come out.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the Jazz Age of the 1920s, we began to see the first indigenous jazz orchestras. Famous for besting Duke Ellington’s group in a Harlem big band contest, Roy Johnson’s Happy Pals were wildly popular in Richmond and beyond, performing live and on the radio throughout the ’20s and ’30s. 

“The people used to line up around the block when they played [venues such as] Johnson’s Ballroom,” says Brown. Led by brothers Roy and Emmett Johnson, the Pals left behind a single 78 recorded for New York’s OKeh label that still entrances aficionados. “Why Roy Johnson’s Happy Pals never became as big as Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra is one of those faintly inscrutable mysteries that time has buried well,” wrote critic Lou Ford in 78 Quarterly

As the music expanded, from Dixieland to swing, big band to bebop, hard bop to fusion, and all of the variants in between, Virginia’s musicians rolled with, and sometimes constructed, the changes. Jazz in Virginia reveals some patterns. While we find singers, drummers, guitarists, clarinetists, flautists, trombonists, saxophonists and even tuba players throughout the state, one wonders what in the Virginia water has spurred our production of so many world-class keyboardists—Pullen, Walter Davis Jr., Dick Morgan, Lonnie Liston Smith, Claude Hopkins, Cliff Jackson, Teddy Weatherford and Weldon Irvine.

“I don’t know if you would say that there’s a common ‘Virginia’ sound to all of these performers who came from here,” says Brown. “But there’s something about the rhythm, that Virginia rhythm, that’s one of the common threads as the music developed. There’s a danceable rhythm running throughout. It’s meant to move you.”

Click here for more from our interview with B.J. Brown.

MUSIC
PROFILES

What's Cookin'

Where to find Jazz musicians gigging in Virginia.

EMILIO'S

Richmond

For more than 30 years, the legendary Doc Branch has led Friday night jazz performances.

 

THE TIN PAN

Richmond

Both national jazz talents and local favorites perform nightly.

 

VAGABOND

Richmond

“Rabbit Hole,” the venue’s entertainment lounge, hosts the area’s top jazz, blues and R&B musicians.

LAPORTA'S RESTAURANT

Alexandria

Live jazz accompanies dinner seven nights a week as well as Sunday brunch.

 

TWO NINETEEN RESTAURANT

Alexandria

The restaurant’s jazz lounge has been around for over 50 years.

STEPHEN'S JAZZ CAFE

Winchester

Local jazz musicians perform here every Friday and Saturday night in the hometown of the  late double bassist John Kirby.

RIVES THEATRE

Martinsville

Proceeds from jazz shows benefit the historic nonprofit venue.

 

ATTUCKS THEATRE

Norfolk

Coined the “Apollo of the South,” the historic venue hosts weekly jazz performances.

THE ICE HOUSE CAFE

Herndon

Groove to all sounds on the jazz spectrum, from old to new.

GARTH NEWEL MUSIC CENTER

Hot Springs

This mountain venue hosts more than 50 concerts throughout the year in different genres, including jazz. 

THE TRAIN STATION

Newport News

Located in an old train station, this restaurant features jazz musicians from Hampton Roads every Friday night.

Find more great Jazz musicians here.

EVENTS

Jazz Series Not to Miss

ARLINGTON

 

Jazz vocalist Akua Allrich mixes music and poetry in her cabaret Blues Revolution highlighting works of Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Langston Hughes and more at Signature Theatre. Aug. 21-25.

CHARLOTTESVILLE

C-Ville is a jazz town, and hard-bop trumpeter John D’earth, drummers Robert Jospe and Darrell Rose, and singer Stephanie Nakasian have long been at the center of it. Every Thursday, catch D’earth and the area’s best players at Miller’s Downtown on Main Street. 

HAMPTON

Say what you want about the purist quality of the jazz found at the Hampton Jazz Festival (in recent days, the summertime event has seen headlining spots taken over by soul, R&B and even hip-hop stars), but a peek at the archives shows that from the very first edition, held at Roosevelt Stadium in 1968, mainstream soul was in the mix. June 22-24.

 

NORFOLK

The Church Street Jazz Series brings top notch regional and national artists to the Attucks Theater and the Harrison Opera House. Grammy-nominated smooth jazz quartet Fourplay is slated to play the Harrison May 26.

 

Two nights on the downtown Norfolk waterfront will feature saxophonist Boney James, smooth jazz guitarist Norman Brown and more for the 36th annual Norfolk Waterfront Jazz Festival, Hampton Roads’ longest running outdoor jazz festival. Aug. 24-25.

 

The Jazz Legacy Foundation aims to preserve the original American art form of jazz. More than 25 artists will perform over four days at the 6th annual gala at the Hilton Main in Norfolk to raise money for jazz education scholarships. Oct. 18-21.

PULASKI

The Fine Arts Center for the New River Valley hosts a day of live music and fresh barbecue at the Rhythm & Ribs festival with headliner blues and funk group Blackwater Band. July 20.

RICHMOND

The Richmond Jazz Society presents its annual Guest Educators Concert Series, featuring emerging artists as well as veteran talents April 10 and May 8 at Capital Ale House downtown. April 22, the Valentine museum will host Family Day, recognizing the descendants of artists featured in the Virginia Jazz exhibition. The Richmond Jazz Festival at Maymont has evolved into one of the premier musical events on the East Coast and one of the top jazz festivals in the country, attracting music lovers from as far away as Japan. August 10-12.

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New Routes

Growing up in Roanoke, there was no jazz on local radio, no special classes to offer a searching young musician. Don Pullen had to find a jazz mentor to guide him. Thankfully, today’s young players have access to outstanding jazz studies programs in many Virginia colleges and universities, and fans have public radio stations that devote actual airtime to jazz. There is now even a Jazz Institute formed in Pullen’s name, run by the Jefferson Center in Roanoke, that instructs hopeful teenage musicians. 

And there are new performers out there, respectful of the past but stretching the music out to suit the beat of modern life. They include Butcher Brown, the funk-fusion brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Devonne Harris, aka DJ Harrison, and horn specialist Marcus Tenney, both of whom play straight-up jazz music with the likes of master trumpeter John D’earth, but have with this band—in the best tradition of the music—decided to play around with the form, incorporating hip-hop rhythms and an aggressive, forceful approach.

 “Our mission is to play the most real music we can, every time,” Harris says about Butcher Brown, but speaking for a movement of new groups across Virginia keeping jazz, in all of its forms, alive. “We’re not trying to recreate the sounds of jazz fusion, but to challenge boundaries.”

Click here to read more about Virginia's greatest jazz musicians.

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