NASHVILLE JAZZ WORKSHOP

NASHVILLE JAZZ WORKSHOP

The Nashville Jazz Workshop does not want to be the city’s best-kept secret any longer.

And, as caretakers of the art form and history, and as those who teach it to others, Nashville Jazz Workshop (NJW) understands what it means to work beneath the surface — unsung though vital. That work is highly regarded by educators around the world, and now NJW hopes to take the next step to gain a greater awareness at home and throughout the broader music community.

Founded in 1998 as the Nashville Jazz Institute by Lori Mechem and Roger Spencer, the workshop provides a journeyman/apprentice approach to jazz education for students of all ages and different levels of musicianship. It publicly celebrates its move to 1012 Buchanan Street in the burgeoning Buchanan Arts District July 25 after two decades at its location in East Germantown. The location not only serves as a space for teaching, but as a much-needed venue for public performances. Its listening room, the Cave, is meant to be the literal heart of the building.

The new Jazz Cave at NJW

“That’s been the problem in the past,” Mechem said, sitting with Spencer in the performance space of the new location. She is the workshop’s director of education and founder, and Spencer is the artistic director and founder. “We’ve always been titled, ‘The best-kept secret.’ Well, hell, I don't want to be a secret anymore. And we were, because you had to know how to get back there to that place [the East Germantown location]. Now we’re on the bus line actually, which is fabulous.”

Music always seems to find its way, and to flourish — often against great odds. Though the move was due to forces beyond the workshop’s control, the new location is completely intentional. The hope is that it will not only continue its mission — vibrantly — here, but will provide connective tissue within the surrounding community and help to restore some of the scene that once defined North Nashville, primarily along Jefferson Street — a scene so rich and important to the city’s music history.

“And, North Nashville — Jefferson Street, Buchanan — is the legacy,” Spencer said recently, as he and Mechem sat in the performance space of the new location. “The music is here, so we always want to be part of that.”

“And, this whole area is now called the Buchanan Arts District,” Mechem said. “And so, when we first started coming over here, and took a look at this place, it was a Spiritual Living church. And I walked in the door, and I was like ‘Okay. This is feeling really good.’”

Sitting in the space allows for imagination. When Mechem plays piano, the room feels very alive.

“There’s good spirit,” she said. “We wanted to be in this area. We just really felt very lucky to be here. And, because it is a historic area, and we needed to be in the community, the Black community, a little more — this was perfect.”

The official Grand Opening is July 24 with the official ribbon cutting ceremony taking place that Saturday at 10:00 a.m. Walk-through tours will be conducted between 11 a.m.-2 p.m. with light refreshments. There will be a short musical performance by the Midtown Jazz Quartet, and visitors can meet the staff. The workshop will offer tours again, Sunday, July 25 from 2-4 p.m. for those who can’t make the Saturday event.

NJW — though well-known by educators — has never been fully embraced by Nashville's musician community, and Spencer believes the workshop needs to better communicate its benefits to all musicians.

"I think it's just maybe we haven't presented it properly," Spencer said. " Instead of telling them they can come take a class, I'm trying to figure how to get their heads wrapped around a place where they can come and share that music with others. And maybe learn a little more about it. There's a spectrum there, and we do have the high-end stuff and play really intricate, progressive music. I'm sure a lot of them would enjoy participating in ... Where else you going to play Mingus?"

Mechem takes it one step further.

“Because we all have holes in our learning — all of us,” she said. “And, it’s important that we fill those holes. To me, teaching these classes has made me a better player. Taking classes with other teachers, which I have, has made me a better player and better teacher, so it’s like Oscar Peterson said, ‘You know if I wasn't learning every day, might as well put me under the ground.’”

Of course, there’s never a straight line. Music can be like water, finding its own entry points. Spencer and Mechem, both professional musicians, understand how players might balk at paying to play and learn.

Roger Spencer and Lori Mechem

“We do charge to be in the classes,” Spencer said. “So, I'm sure a lot of pros who would love to be over here playing some Cannonball Adderley, or Coltrane, or Mingus, or Ellington, think, ‘I’m a pro, I’ve been doing this for years, I don’t need to pay somebody to teach me this stuff.’ That's not what the pay is about. The pay is tuning the piano, keeping the doors open, keeping the air conditioning going. It’s a community, we're trying to share things.”

Everything about the Nashville Jazz Workshop is ambitious, from its stated mission to expand and enrich people’s lives through education and performance, to the day-to-day work, the unseen work, to keep the endeavor alive.

“People have said that we are the community center for jazz,” Mechem said. “So many have played here, there’s a lot of history here. A lot of history. Not in this place, yet, but I just know the people that we have brought through so far, when they step into this room — actually, when they come in the front lobby, they’re taken. ‘Oh, this feels good.’”

For the workshop to have survived and thrived, the infrastructure and vision had to be there. Mechem and Spencer have been the driving force — and the face — for so long, it is noteworthy to feel change in the air. If not change, a certain transition, which was already underway prior to the demands of the pandemic. The Nashville Jazz Workshop is a nonprofit organization, and subsisting through COVID-19 times has been a major, intensive piece of work. The recent physical move is monumental in itself. And, living up to its own standard is daunting, in fact.

“When COVID-19 hit, we pivoted quickly to online teaching and that has pretty much saved us,” Spencer said. “What we were thinking at the time with online was to record yourself teaching a class, and sell admission to that. When COVID-19 hit, everybody discovered Zoom real quickly. So now it’s real time teaching online.”

The workshop’s online presence has far exceeded expectations.

Lori Mechem

“It did so well [during shutdown]” Mechem said. “It had been something we talked about five years ago, in a planning session we did. All the millennials were telling us to take our stuff online. I didn’t even want to hear about it.

“And we hit with it, especially when we started doing the master classes, just the one-offs. That’s where we started to excel even more, so we’ve reached over fourteen countries so far, and over forty states. It’s a thing that now, interestingly enough, because I do all the education stuff, where we had in-person classes, I think we’re going to pivot the other way, where the online classes are going to outweigh the live classes now. It’s interesting to me that it’s gone the other way. People say they love being home in pajamas and having a glass of wine and taking the class. It’s awesome.”

Survival also depends on how the business is managed. Mechem and Spencer had long run every aspect of the workshop, but in 2018, Executive Director Eric Dilts was brought on, and according to both, has provided a steadying influence over operations.

"The Nashville Jazz Workshop was a perfect fit for me when I came on board in 2018. It feels like home. And my management background in the music industry, the financial industry, and economic development gave me the perfect tool kit to help the Workshop get through the relocation and the pandemic," Dilts said.

His expertise in finance and development, and his background in music business, managing copyrights, production and licensing, has proven to be the right perspective at the right time. The three are the workshop’s full-time staff. The permanent part-time staff includes Development Director Rob Gordon, Communications Director Larry Seeman, Office Manager Roz Thompson, and Accountant Rebecca Sayre. Other support roles are contracted out, and teachers, of course, are contracted for classes and performances.

“It’s getting to that point where Roger and I both know we need young people in here,” Mechem said. “There’s certain things he knows how to do, and there’s certain things I know how to do. But, adding Eric was so needed. He’s starting to add the community to us. He’s fine-tuning us and putting us in the position to take the next step. Honestly, without him, we would’ve shut our doors.”

Roger Spencer and Eric Dilts

Of course, at the heart of the matter is the educational charge. The Nashville Jazz Workshop is an enrichment program.

Bassist Rufus Reid guides NJW students

“People don’t have to sign up for a four-year degree program and audition and pay that kind of tuition,” Spencer said. “We have people who show up and take a class, and we never see them again. Or we have people show up and take a class and we don’t see them for six months — and they come back and take another class. We have people who are here for every session. That’s why we call it a workshop. Exactly why we chose the name.

“From time to time, our board of directors has brought up the issue of the accreditation, and when we explain the hoops you have to jump through, and all that’s involved with what universities go through — they agree. Our faculty comes from MTSU, Belmont — I teach at Blair. And, Ryan Middagh at Blair, head of the jazz department, is a big supporter of what we’re doing. All those people play here, and they send their students over here for specific things.”

The workshop offers classes geared to vocalists, instrumentalists, or all musicians and enthusiasts. Several classes are offered for each path of study, and follow through Fundamentals courses, the Great American Songbook, and the Jazz Performer. Students are presented with certificates of completion as they move through the workshop. There are also special programs, such as Jazz AM for kids, and Jazz on the Move.

“The Jazz Performer is for those who have done all the classes, and more,” Mechem said. “So, it’s like the doctorate — undergraduate, masters, doctorate. And, we just formed a partnership with the Nashville Youth Jazz Ensemble,” Mechem said. “When we’re ready, they’ll pretty much be in residence here. This will basically be their rehearsal space for their Sunday rehearsals.

Lori Mechem

“And, we’ve always done a summer camp, except for the past two years, and we’re thinking how to redefine those. We’ve started a new program for kids from [ages] two to ten — Jazz AM. It’s a puppet show — a jazz puppet show. We just did Louis Armstrong at Hadley Park. The kids just went crazy. This is a free program for families in North Nashville — we’re reaching out.”

And, the workshop always has an eye on evolution, trying to stay relevant as it develops new classes and ideas. Mechem and Spencer want to push the boundaries of interaction with the city. Jazz on the Move, a free concert for the community, is usually held at the Frist Art Museum, but the workshop is planning to move into other locations in the city — staying true to the program’s name.

Perhaps most importantly, the performance venue at the new location — the Cave — will energize not only enthusiasts, but will serve the community and the city in an even greater way going forward. If all goes well, performances will begin in August.

“We’re ambitious with everything that’s going on here,” Spencer said. “Performances are definitely a strong part of our plan. We’re going to try to do six or eight nights a month, so we need to get up and go with it. It is especially ambitious, and we’re trying to set ourselves apart from being a jazz club — we wanted more of a concert vibe. It’s a sit-and-listen, and enjoy the performance type of space.

“We’re looking at going forward just one set a night on each of those nights. An hour or a little longer, and done. We’re sensing that people are ready, and we think it’s going to be really good. That’s why we’re aiming for that number of performances, or more if the market will bear.”

The hope, and expectation, is that these performances will generate interest and good will, and open hearts to an idea that honors music in a city built on music. For Mechem and Spencer, the move to Buchanan has unlimited possibilities.

“We have partnerships with the Country Music Hall of Fame [and Museum], and the [Nashville] Symphony, and the Frist,” Mechem said. “So now, we’ve regrouped some and we’re positioned in this area, and we want to extend our reach a little bit more. And, really do different kinds of classes. Do different kinds of music …

“This feels like home. It’s like when I first walked in. I have crystals all over my house, and I walked in, and there’s crystals here. This is great. There’s chakra posters. I’m home.”

JazzMania 2019

JAZZMANIA, THE NJW ANNUAL FUNDRAISER, WILL BE HELD OCT. 23 AS A LIVESTREAM EVENT ON YOUTUBE. JAZZMANIA WILL BE PRECEDED ON OCT. 22 BY ANOTHER SPONSOR/DONOR EVENT.

Go to www. nashvillejazz.org for details.