The Grammy-nominated quintet Kneebody is known for their unique sound, which fuses traditional jazz, instrumental hip hop, electro pop and more. The group will perform at The Lyric Theatre on Thursday, Dec. 7 as part of the Origins Jazz Series.
Organizers of the Origins Jazz Series are gearing up for the third and fourth installments of a new music series geared to help the city celebrate and remember its rich history in jazz music – a genre that organizers feel has been underserved in the community in recent years.
The first installment of the Origins Jazz Series took place in October, but the series has been taking shape since this summer, when Richard Young, graduate of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and former executive director for the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington, reached out to Lyric Theatre executive director Donald Mason. Inspired in part by the University of Kentucky’s longstanding Spotlight Jazz Series – which departed in 2002 after 35 years – Young pitched Mason on an idea to bring a new jazz series to Lexington. Mason gleefully accepted, and after the two enlisted further help from Shawn Gannon (founder of the local Soulful Space series), local musician Eli Uttal-Veroff, Chester Grundy (founder of the aforementioned Spotlight Jazz Series) and others, the series took flight.
Among the flagship goals of the new series is to not only drum up new local excitement about the genre, but to educate the community about Lexington’s history with jazz. The Spotlight Jazz Series was an essential chapter in that history, and the Lyric Theatre – which hosted dozens of notable national jazz musicians in its heyday, from Ray Charles to Count Basie – also played a strong role. Also central that history is the Narcotic Farm, a rural drug rehab facility on the outskirts of town that opened in 1935 and housed a bevy of world-famous jazz musicians over the years, including Chet Baker, Sonny Rollins and Howard McGhee. (The institution inspired a book and PBS documentary, both titled “The Narcotic Farm: The Rise and Fall of America’s First Prison for Drug Addicts.”)
After hosting both a local and national act for its debut in October, the series will begin alternating between local and national artists at the Lyric Theatre and Tee Dee’s Club in November. While the series looks to shine a light on rising musicians, Uttal-Veroff also emphasized the importance of bringing in bigger, more recognizable acts, to show the up-and-comers, starving artists and fans what can be accomplished through hard work.
He cites both the digitization of music and the closing of several venues in recent years with lowering people’s motivation to see live music, in turn making it tougher for smaller, up-and-coming acts to find opportunities to perform in spaces where they can show off their best work.
“Local musicians have less opportunities to present their best work because at a restaurant and other high society gigs, you’re playing a role – you have a job to present the ambiance a certain way, so you’re not putting out the best product of your own artistry,” Uttal-Veroff said. “With this series, we [encourage] our performers to play that one show they’ve been sitting on forever but haven’t had the ideal opportunity to perform yet.”
Kneebody, scheduled to perform at the Lyric Theatre on Dec. 7 as part of the Origins Jazz Series
Aside from the group’s local goal of revitalizing Lexington’s jazz scene, a broader goal of the series is to re-establish dissolved partnerships between local arts organizations and programs that host jazz series, in order to coordinate artist tours and accommodations at a more feasible cost.
“I think you see this a lot in art – there’s a real scarcity mentality. Resources are limited and everyone is competing for their funding,” Young said. “People are hyper-focused on making their individual things successful and are so resource-strapped in terms of staffing, communication and everything else that they don’t look beyond just getting people in their seats.”
To that end, Origins Jazz Series organizers are tapping on music connections they have in Cincinnati and Indianapolis, and are also calling upon friends here in Lexington, including LexArts and 21c Museum Hotel.
On Thursday, Dec. 7, Grammy-nominated jazz fusion act Kneebody is scheduled to perform at the Lyric Theatre. The New York- and Los Angeles-based quintet is known for its eclectic style, drawing from influences ranging from hip hop to electronic to punk rock. On Jan. 13, Lexington R&B, jazz and soul maven Jessie Laine Powell will take the stage at Tee Dee's for an intimate evening of local music. Visit https://www.originsjazz.org/series/ to see the full schedule of monthly shows, which are currently scheduled through March 2018.
“It is important not only to realize the history and impact of jazz, but to continue to show that the art form is alive, well and growing,” Mason said, adding that jazz is his personal favorite type of music. “It joys me to see the power of a live jazz performance to the audience. Pure magic.”