Things are buzzing these days at the Vermont Jazz Center. Not only was there record enrollment for the VJC’s annual summer workshop, with more than 60 students of all ages signed up for a week-long jazz immersion camp, but it has just reeled in one of the jazz world’s biggest fish for its upcoming concert season.

 

Kenny Barron, a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, will be coming to Brattleboro on Saturday, Oct. 15, to perform with his trio in the historic Latchis Theatre. One of the finest pianists in the jazz world, Barron cut his teeth perfoming with Dizzy Gillespie’s quartet in the 1960s and later collaborated with Stan Getz on several groundbreaking albums in the 1980s. As a bandleader, he has recorded more than 40 albums, topped countless critics’ polls and earned an unparalleled reputation for the expressiveness and range of his music.

“This is a huge deal. Kenny Barron is one of my favorite piano players in the entire world,” said Vermont Jazz Center Artistic Director Eugene Uman, also a pianist, who studied for a time with Barron. “I always had a dream that I would present him in concert.”

From his vantage point, Uman has a unique perspective on the jazz scene in Vermont. As a musician, teacher and administrator, he likes what sees of both the forest and the trees of the jazz world— fitting for a man who came to Vermont in the 1980s as a forestry specialist who did music on the side. At the time, it was hard to find kindred jazz spirits, he admits. Fortunately, that has changed.

“I’ve seen jazz flourish in Vermont over the last 20-something years,” said Uman, who points to better jazz education in high schools and colleges as one reason. “The state of jazz in Vermont, at this point, is good, in terms of the fact that there are some really good musicians, and having a unique voice is encouraged.”

Uman is onto something here. There’s something about the spirit and essence of jazz that fits very well with life in Vermont.

“The tradition in jazz has been that you have a unique voice. I feel that’s kind of a Vermont tradition. We’re rebels at heart, and being original is encouraged. You find people that are really searching. In Vermont, it’s accepted that people are here to explore,” said Uman.

But individuality in jazz is counterbalanced by the sublime cooperation the music requires. A unique voice  is encouraged but always within the context of the group. Here, too, jazz echoes Vermont, which is famous for its Town Meetings, its reputation as a haven for hippie communes in the 1960s and ‘70s, and for the friendliness, neighborliness and cooperation that life in small towns requires.

“Jazz is a team sport. You can be an individual, you can play solo, but you also have to play within a certain respect for the rules,” said Uman. “A sense of community is something that we’ve always tried to develop.”

As someone who has participated in and watched over the Vermont jazz scene for more than 20 years, Uman knows it’s not all Shangri-La. Making a living as a jazz musician in Vermont can be challenging. Musicians can’t sustain themselves with gigs, so most must balance careers in teaching or other side jobs with their musical lives. “Moonlight in Vermont” is a notable jazz standard that has been recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Chet Baker, Mel Torme and hundreds of others. Moonlighting in Vermont is the standard for jazz musicians here.

Still, the jazz scene has taken root and flourished, something for which Uman is grateful. “I feel very fortunate that we are attaining and surpassing our goals.”

And the word is out about Vermont’s jazz scene.  On just about every Wednesday night, the Vermont Jazz Center hosts a jam session, where musicians can get together and play standards for a couple of hours. On a comfortable Wednesday night in early August, jazz could be heard pouring out from the open windows of the Cotton Mill, filling the streetlit sidewalk with what sounded like the soundtrack to a film noir classic.

At that Wednesday night jam session, about a dozen musicians had gathered, including 17-year-old sax phenom David Milazzo, who regularly travels nearly two hours from his home in Manchester, N.H., because he likes the scene in Brattleboro.

“New Hampshire’s a bigger state with more people, but there’s nothing like this in New Hampshire,” said Milazzo, who plans to study jazz in college and pursue a career in music. “Everybody here is really great and really passionate about jazz. …There’s a unique sparkle here that I really like.”

For more about the Vermont Jazz Center and the Kenny Barron Trio concert at the Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro, visit http://www.vtjazz.org.