Northeast Ohio is laden with musical talent in nearly any genre or style you can imagine.
You can’t stand on a street corner in Summit, Stark or Cuyahoga counties and spit into the wind without moistening a talented guitarist, singer, horn player or one of those roving herds of steel drummers who occasionally break loose from the University of Akron.
We all know Cleveland’s rock history, but the North Coast is also steeped in jazz, and blues have had a long and storied, though not always fully appreciated, history in NE Ohio. The area has bred or been home to many talented folks such as bop-era composer-arranger Tadd Dameron, saxophonists Joe Lovano and the late Waymon “Punchy” Atkinson as well as blues men Robert Lockwood Jr. and Howard “Sonny” Robertson — and other legendary artists who played legendary places, such as the bars and clubs on Akron’s Howard Street and Leo’s Casino in Cleveland.
On Friday and Saturday, one of the area’s talented youngsters (this is jazz and blues music, so any musician under 40 is still pretty “young”), pianist Theron Brown, will help add to the NE Ohio jazz and blues tradition in the form of the first Rubber City Jazz & Blues Festival, taking place at Maiden Lane, Blu Jazz+ and Musica in downtown Akron’s arts district.
Festival activities begin at noon Friday with some solo piano from Joe Leaman and run through late Saturday night’s dance party at Musica. And in between those two jazzy bookends will be performances by local favorites, including bluesman Austin Walkin’ Cane, funky smooth jazz purveyors Hubb’s Groove, and a local/national mashup for a headliner: local guitarist Dan Wilson and his organ trio playing with internationally known saxophonist Chris Potter.
Brown is a respected jazz pianist, University of Akron grad and educator at Youngstown State who has played with bands and artists including the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, the Glenn Miller Orchestra and bassist Christian McBride, as well as having a brief part as Herbie Hancock in Don Cheadle’s 2015 Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead.
For the festival, Brown teamed up with Open Tone Music, a Cleveland-based organization run by Brown’s friend, mentor and trombonist Chris Anderson. The nonprofit program is dedicated to “support, develop and implement programs which focus on making music performance and music education accessible,” with a focus on youth. They applied for a Knight Foundation grant, and in the spring of 2016 were awarded $75,000 to get the festival up and running.
“We were super happy when we won it. It was kind of unbelievable, but that only lasted for a day or two,” Brown said.
The euphoria and feeling of accomplishment quickly subsided as the already quite busy Brown realized he was now responsible for putting on a festival in downtown Akron. “Jazz festival organizer” wasn’t exactly the centerpiece on Brown’s dream board, but he’s embracing the responsibility.
“It’s crazy because I’m already busy without that and it’s just ... insane ... I have to get ready for college and teaching and I got a gig tonight with (former Prince saxophonist) Marcus Anderson. There’s just a lot of stuff on my mind, email after email. But I can’t complain,” he said, laughing.
For the festival’s inauguration Brown decided to keep it simple.
“My perspective on it was just to focus on the musicians here in Akron and NE Ohio for this first year,” Brown said. “To really expose the city and this area to the great musicians we have here — you know, Acid Cats, Dan Wilson ... and Moustache Yourself — they’re everywhere,” he said.
Also ready for more exposure are young artists, including trumpeter Josh Rzepka, performing with bassist Mike Forfia, jazz and hip-hop infused R&B group Bluelight and Hubb’s Groove. Cleveland chanteuse Vanessa Rubin will perform with bassist Kenny Davis’ quintet.
The night’s headliner guitarist, Wilson, who performs with Potter, has spent the past year touring heavily with jazz-poll-winning organist Joey DeFrancesco and will be fronting his own jazz trio. Potter’s resume includes touring and recording with luminaries like Dave Holland, Dave Douglas and Pat Metheny as well as having his own bands and recordings since 1994. Potter has won DownBeat polls as Best Tenor Saxophonist five times, including in 2014.
In addition to the area’s talent, Brown also appreciates its history, when “Howard Street was the Harlem of the time,” and hopes to add to that past because “it’s a really strong legacy.”
But the $75,000 wasn’t needed just to ensure that Potter gets everything on his tour rider. The goal of Open Tone and the festival is to get music education into local schools through the Boys & Girls Club, and ideally “to get the musicians we have here to get involved and helping out too. Hopefully we can get surrounding musicians to get down there and teach the kids or just hang out and be guest artists. There are a lot of possibilities,” Brown said.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758. Read his blog, Sound Check Online, at www.ohio.com/blogs/sound-check, like him on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/1lNgxml and/or follow him on Twitter @malcolmabramABJ.