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Jazz Series Receives NEA Grant

July 15, 2008

“We Always Swing” Jazz Series snags prestigious NEA Jazz Masters Live grants…

Organization, one of only 12 presenters in the United States selected to receive $30,000 award paves the way for Missouri native and NEA Jazz Master Bob Brookmeyer to compose new work for the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. New York-based, 16-piece orchestra arrives in Columbia to perform world premiere February 18, 2009, at the Missouri Theatre with Brookmeyer as guest conductor. Also on hand: Dan Morgenstern, fellow NEA Jazz Master and Director of Rutgers Jazz Institute. The world renowned historian will serve as guest emcee and host a pair of forums: a one-on-one interview with Brookmeyer and an in-depth look into the chronology of the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, which has been holding court at jazz’s most famous basement – The Village Vanguard – since 1965. Much-anticipated events serve as centerpiece for MU’s Arts & Science Week.

When the National Endowment for the Arts selected the “We Always Swing” Jazz Series in 2006 to serve as Missouri’s “Host Site” for its prestigious “NEA Jazz Masters” Initiative that identified singular representative presenters on a state-by-state basis, we were truly honored. It allowed us to present the likes of saxophonists Paquito D’Rivera and Jimmy Heath – each an NEA-identified performer that received the agency’s equivalent of a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Now two years later, the NEA has again selected the Jazz Series – one of only 12 recipients in the country and by far the presenter located in the smallest market – to participate in its “Jazz Masters Live” Program. Recommended for full funding at the $30,000 level, the Jazz Series will use the 1:1 matching grant to commission new work from Kansas City native and 2006 Jazz Master recipient Bob Brookmeyer. The Kansas City native, veteran arranger and conductor has accepted the challenge to compose a world premier for the band he joined circa 1965 that, at the time, was known as the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra.

On this special night, February 18, 2009, Brookmeyer will serve as guest conductor for the 16-piece orchestra, which will rehearse the piece in New York before they arrive in Columbia to perform the world premier. Augmenting the proceedings will be Director of Jazz Institute, author, critic and jazz advocate Dan Morgenstern, Brookmeyer’s contemporary who likewise was nominated and selected to hold the title of NEA Jazz Master.
The NEA names between three and six musicians and advocates per year to receive the award.

Morgenstern, perhaps the world’s foremost jazz historian, will serve as guest host and emcee, introducing the musicians that evening. The day before he will moderate two historically inclined forums – one an anecdotal conversation between he and Brookmeyer on the valve trombonist’s contributions to jazz – the second an in-depth look at the 43-year evolution of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra that became a Lewis-run organization upon Jones’ 1982 passing and then the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra upon Lewis’ 1992 passing.

The Grammy-nominated group, which tours all over the world as well as throughout the United States, is one of the country’s best big bands. It continues to perform every Monday night in New York City when it’s not on the road.

“This is one of the most ambitious undertakings we have ever attempted said Jon Poses, who serves as the Jazz Series’ executive director. “This is a major project for us – and a major gamble given that this is a dollar-for-dollar matching grant, but we wouldn’t trade it for anything. To be one of 12 in the country to receive the grant, to commission someone as prestigious as Bob Brookmeyer to write new music for one of the best big bands in the world, and then to have that big band perform it in a setting like the newly restored Missouri Theatre for the Arts – with a jazz historian such as Dan Morgenstern serve as guest emcee and host and have the whole thing be part of MU’s Arts & Science Week – well, that’s got to be way up there in terms of what we are trying to accomplish.”

Poses reemphasized that the major NEA grant is a dollar-for-dollar matching grant, adding that the Jazz Series has set up a special fund where the public can make contributions specifically to help offset the measurable expense of this project.