One of my favorite events all year is the Backcountry Jazz benefit concert. Held at Bright Brook Farm in Greenwich in June, this concert is always magical. This year was no exception. We sat inside a barn, the doors wide open to allow a soft breeze, and listened to jazz that was alive, heartfelt and really, really good.
Backcountry Jazz is a non-profit started by internationally renowned jazz saxophonist and Greenwich resident, Bennie Wallace. It’s mission is to revive jazz, the only uniquely American art form, at a time when interest in jazz is waning; to use music to help inner city kids; and to build bridges between people and communities.
Backcountry Jazz (BCJ) selected Bridgeport as its first urban location since its the largest city in our district and actually has a long history with jazz: The Ritz Ballroom and the Continental Restaurant were host to some of the most famous big bands back in the 1930′s such as Bennie Goodman, Artie Shaw, Count Basie and Tommy Dorsey. BCJ offers several kinds of programming that enriches the students of the Bridgeport schools as well as the entire city and community. With the help of many individuals and organizations such as Tania Kelley from the Bridgeport Public Schools, Frank Derico from Neighborhood Studios of Fairfield County (formerly MACH), Rob Silvan from KEYS, ABCD, Greater Bridgeport Latino Network and City Lights Gallery amongst others, BCJ offers community concerts, workshops, master classes, artist-in-residence, and scholarship opportunities. Thanks to BCJ, professional musicians such as trumpeter, Jo Magnarelli, and pianist, Mike Longo, come to Bridgeport to teach improvisation, instrumental techniques, and the cultural and historical value of jazz. When you talk to Bennie Wallace about this musical instruction, he starts starts by speaking about the musical theory taught by Dizzy Gillespie but quickly stops using words and starts energetically tapping essential jazz rhythms on his legs, eager to share his love of jazz and Dizzy’s method.
Bennie’s interest in music started early and he credits music, and jazz in particular, with helping him find his true calling and focus in life. The arts can do that. I also benefited from arts education, not really learning how to think critically until I studied architecture. There was something for me about drawing and building that taught me how to think in a way that reading and writing never could. And we can go beyond the anecdotal on the benefits of the arts in education: in a study published in 2002, Kathryn Vaughn showed how students who take music classes in high school are more likely to score higher on standardized math tests such as the SAT. One explanation that seems to make common sense is that musical training in rhythm emphasizes proportion, patterns and ratio- all mathematical concepts.
The arts can also help create better students and can unify people of different ages, socio-economic backgrounds, religions, cultures. These moments of shared, authentic experiences are rare and precious. I was lucky to have such an experience at BCJ’s Disorder at the Border community concert in the fall of 2008 at the Black Rock Arts Center. The music and the vibe was unbelievably cool: there were folks from Greenwich and Stamford, families from Bridgeport and tons of young students all seated together in the local arts center, and none of us could stay sitting for long as the jazz urged us to stand, clap and dance. The music brought us all together, this most disparate group of people, in a truly joyful experience. And the kids were as mesmerized as we adults- if you could have seen their faces beaming. It was an image to cherish and remember. Nancy Kail, member of the Board of Education had a similar experience at the recent Bridgeport Public Schools City Wide Youth Concert for over 1,000 people at the Quick Center last June. As she says, “…not a single audience member was still when Bennie and the band played tunes such as Carnaval, a Dizzy favorite. Every single student had a foot tapping, or a head bobbing or a hand keeping time against a leg or a chair. It was such a joy to see everyone in the room so into the music. There was thunderous applause after every solo and teachers were hard pressed to clear the auditorium at the end of the concert when the band closed the set with the blues. Kudos to the Bridgeport education system for delivering such high quality programming to students. I’m sure there were more than a few kids who got turned on to listening to and studying jazz and other music because of that concert. All public school students from every district in the state should have the same opportunity. Thank you Bennie!.”
Music is important. It teaches us, inspires us, and unites us. We should make sure that the arts remain a key part of public school curriculum. We need the Boards of Education in all our towns to support arts education and we need to support organizations like Backcountry Jazz that are working hard to provide a helping hand to the kids in our cities like Bridgeport and hopefully soon in Norwalk and Stamford as well.
Please check out the website for Backcountry Jazz to see clips of live concerts. Their website address is: www.backcountryjazz.org
