JAZZ. For some people the word calls to mind a 1950’s film noir soundtrack or the cool sound of a sexy late-night radio program. For others, jazz is a somewhat moribund art form that had its heyday before rock music came of age. But look around the city of Bloomington and you’ll see how America’s most original musical treasure is flourishing in the 21st century. jazz is hot again by David Brent Johnson photography by Cliff Doerzbacher Bloom | August/September 2006 44 JAZZ. For some people the word calls to mind a 1950’s film noir soundtrack or the cool sound of a sexy late-night radio program. For others, jazz is a somewhat moribund art form that had its heyday before rock music came of age. But look around the city of Bloomington and you’ll see how America’s most original musical treasure is flourishing in the 21st century. 45 August/September 2006 | Bloom jazz is hot again by David Brent Johnson photography by Cliff Doerzbacher night he wrote the song. Mythical or not (Carmichael biographer Richard Sudhalter says the song was composed over the course of several different sittings), the creation of “Stardust” is a key early chapter in the story of Bloomington jazz. That story dates back at least to the spring of 1924, when a man who would become one of jazz’s most mythical figures came to town. Jazz in Bloomington is the Stardusters He was just 21, a cornet player with a penchant Orchestra swinging everything from the clas- for bootleg liquor and an unvarnished ability sics to 1970’s disco while dancers take to the to shape sounds of beauty with his horn. His floor. It’s trumpeter Dominic Spera leading a name was Bix Beiderbecke, and throughout crack lineup of Indiana University faculty mu- that spring he and his band, the Wolverines, sicians through a set of jazz standards before an played fraternity parties at Indiana University. Malibu Grill Allen (bass) Jeremy Steve Houghton (drums) Rusty Burge (vibes) Pat Harbison (trumpet) adoring crowd of older Bloomingtonians. It’s He also spent a great the avant-garde Saxophone Cartel negotiat- deal of time with ing the limits of sound while recording a new 24-year-old Hoagy CD in front of a downtown loft audience. It is Carmichael. As the trumpeter Pat Harbison playing at the Malibu story goes, they were “It was a hot night, sweet with the death of summer and the hint and promise of fall,” said Carmichael of the night he wrote Stardust. lying on the floor of Carmichael’s frat house mold of Louis Prima. Right: Dominic Spera, one afternoon, some- photograph by Tom Stio Stio photograph by Tom Above: Hogy Carmichael a natural showman in the what hungover as they listened to Stravinsky’s “The Firebird,” when Beiderbecke grog- gily suggested that Carmichael take up songwriting. Thus was Grill on the Square and enjoying the sophisti- the career of an American legend born. cated urban vibe so much that he feels as if he More than 80 years later, the jazz scene “could be playing anywhere in the world.” And in Bloomington is thriving. “When I came it is live jazz nearly every night of the week on back to Bloomington in 1997,” says Harbison, the streets of a small city with a big-city appre- a trumpeter and faculty member at the IU ciation for creativity and tradition. School of Music, “you could only find jazz at These are the same streets that songwriter Bear’s Place and the IU campus. Now there are Hoagy Carmichael walked as a boy, the same a lot more places featuring jazz, a lot more peo- skies from which he drew down the breath that ple are playing off-campus, and the audience returned to us as “Stardust.” That song alone is much more diverse. You have everyone from is enough to earn Bloomington a place in jazz kids trying to get in with fake IDs to the AARP history with its hundreds of recordings and its set coming out for Dominic Spera.” uncanny ability to simultaneously evoke youth, nostalgia, and longing. “It was a hot night, sweet with the death of summer and the hint and promise of fall,” said Carmichael of the 46 Bloom | August/September 2006 August/September 2006 | Bloom 47 Spera is a retired IU School of Music professor and a trumpeter-bandleader of longstanding repute in the Bloomington jazz community. On a spring night, he’s standing on the crowd- ed, triangular stage in the back room of Bear’s Place, leading an octet of IU faculty members and high-profile community musicians. A natu- ral showman, Spera works a neighbor’s woes with a tomato garden into a Louis Armstrong- like vocal, provoking much laughter from the audience. Spera introduces an old jazz standard called “Flamingo” with chair of the some warm and complimentary jibes at its arrang- David Baker, jazz department and the rarest a jazz celloist. of rare, Stio photograph by Tom er, saxophonist brought national jazz acts such as Tom Walsh, who’s Charles Mingus here in the 1970’s, on the bandstand booked jazz at the Second Story club with him. Behind during the 1980’s, and has acted as him, the coolly host, director, and frequent participant self-possessed at Fables over the past 17 years. Miller cites Bear’s proximity to the IU School of Music (just across the street) and the influx of young players “These kids are incredibly talented,” says IU’s David Baker, “and they’re much better-informed than the kids of my generation. They now have a mechanism for Luke Gillespie adds occasional learning jazz.” (drums) trumpet) musical commen- tary on his piano. The show ends with a happy drawn here by David Dennis Riggins Joel Kelsey (bass) confluence of clarinet and brass on “Back Baker, chairman of the Dan Deckard Dan Deckard Home Again in Indiana.” jazz department and a Pat Harbison ( Julian Bransby (piano) Spera is playing as part of the Jazz Fables revered jazz educator, Wide Open at Bear’s Place Wide Open at Bear’s (alto and tenor saxophones) concert series, a Thursday-night tradition as important factors in launched by trumpeter David Miller in 1989 the Jazz Fables’ success. (the Fables concept itself goes back to 1977). “The wonderful thing Throughout most of the 1990’s it was the for me is that I get to one consistent venue for jazz not on the IU play with all of these campus. Today it’s one of more than half-a- great musicians who dozen regular jazz gigs in town. Miller, who come to town,” says came to Bloomington as a student in 1966, is Miller. “A lot of them come back to play, and a key figure in the city’s jazz past and present. some of them stay. When I started the Fables at He advised the Bluebird nightclub when it Bear’s, two of the band members were graduate students—now they’re professors at the School at Café Django of Music (saxophonist Tom Walsh and pianist David Miller playing (trumpet, flugelhorn) Luke Gillespie).” Harbison attributes much of the increased live-jazz activity to Bloomington’s growth as a city. “You have post-midlife people com- ing here looking for the quality of life, the art 48 Bloom | August/September 2006 There are far too many outstanding jazz musicians in Bloomington to list them all, but here are 25 of the best with comments from their peers. the players SAXOPHONE PIANO TRUMPET Al Cobine Julian Pat Harbison A longtime composer and big- Bransby An IU School of Music jazz scene, affordable places to live. People are still band leader, Cobine worked A recent professor and member of the thinking of Bloomington as a college, aging- with Henry Mancini and other Bloomington group Wide Open, Harbison hippie town, but now we have upper-middle- popular performers. He’s so North High performs frequently in New class executive types from the East Coast respected in these parts that School York and other major cities moving here.” Jazz From Bloomington named graduate, he’s a piano prodigy around the country. “He’s such “People think Bloomington is in the middle their annual award after him. still in his teens, playing with a great educator and can of a cornfield,” says Baker. “But you can see all The first recipient? Al Cobine. the group Wide Open. His play any style.” these outstanding classical and jazz musicians high school trio recently and when you leave the venue, your car will Michael Eaton won Downbeat Magazine’s Kyle Quass still be there.” Eaton is a member of (x)-Tet, annual Student Music Awards A former member of the Baker came back to Bloomington in 1966, Art Deco, and the avant-garde competition. Gyrogenics, Quass keeps a after earlier stays for undergraduate and collective The Saxophone low profile these days. “His doctoral work, and Cartel. “He’s a solid but still Luke Gillespie trumpet style is conceptually became a pioneer adventurous musician who An IU School of Music jazz reminiscent of Woody Shaw in the field of plays with a soulful and professor, he garners much or Greg Osby; his jazz education, melodic flair in a free mode.” praise from his contemporary compositions often utilize developing a jazz players. “Gillespie can do rhythmic layers, odd meters, studies program Morgan Price anything from Bill Evans to and non-conventional that’s marking A member of The Saxophone Erroll Garner and still sound harmony.” its 40th anniver- Cartel, “he’s got great chops like himself; tremendous sary this autumn.