By DAN ARMONAITIS
Shannon Hoover has experienced the loss of some important people in his life lately, including a couple of family members and such musician friends as Kofi Burbridge and Yonrico Scott.
It inspired him to write a still-untitled jazz composition that will be premiered as part of the Greenville Jazz Collective’s 2019 Local Jazz Composers concert being presented Tuesday, Dec. 3 at Coffee Underground in downtown Greenville.
“There is a swing element to it, but it’s more of a modern jazz tune,” said Hoover, who plays bass for the Greenville Jazz Collective. “I’ve been listening to some Kurt Rosenwinkel lately, so there’s some influence of that. We’ve lost a lot of great local musicians so I had started the tune about a month ago, but then kind of reformatted it to be in memory of a couple of family members I lost as well.”
Hoover is one of 13 jazz composers whose works will be performed Tuesday night by a quartet of Greenville Jazz Collective musicians that also includes Matt Dingledine on guitar, Matt Olson on saxophone and Justin Watt on drums. The small ensemble usually also includes pianist Keith Davis, but he’s unavailable for the concert.
The Greenville Jazz Collective is a nonprofit organization that has done education outreach and regular performances in a variety of settings since 2012.
“We started this organization off with a series to try to promote our local musicians who write jazz music,” Hoover said. “It’s hard to even hear jazz in town at all, let alone locally-composed music. So, this concert is always a great time. We always have a good turnout for this one.”
In addition to Hoover’s piece, the concert will include jazz compositions by Dingledine, Olson and Davis, as well as by fellow Greenville-based musicians Peter Dimery, Ronnie Elliott and Tish Oney. There will also be works by Tom Wright of Spartanburg, Wendy Jones of Hendersonville, N.C., Jason DeCristafaro of Asheville, N.C., Michael Jefry Stevens of Black Mountain, N.C., Lovell Bradford of Charlotte, N.C. and the late Burbridge.
“This concert is a great opportunity to find out what our local jazz community has to offer,” Hoover said. “Most of the time when there’s a big jazz show in the area, it’s an outside act. But this is a chance for people to interact as some of the composers will be here. We’ll have CDs on hand from most of these artists, and I think another draw is that it’s brand new music.
“About half of the set will be tunes that are freshly written and haven’t even been played yet in public. Jazz is already this improvisation thing where you see it in action, but it’s even more so when it’s our own music that we’ve created almost on the spot.”
One of the composers, Elliott, is a 10-year-old guitarist with a deep appreciation for jazz. He’ll join the quartet on stage for his tune.
“The last couple of years, we’ve started reaching out to some of our private lesson students who may write,” Hoover said. “We picked a tune last year from one of my bass students, and it went over well. It’s great because it gives us a chance to get some young budding composers inspired to do more of that.”
Hoover said Elliott’s composition has a Latin jazz flavor and that the entire concert will be full of musical variety.
“There’s stuff all across the board,” Hoover said. “The tune we’re going to play of Kofi’s is a like a second-line New Orleans kind of thing called ‘Crawfish,’ and we’ll also have a couple of vocalists — Tish Oney and Wendy Jones — who will sing their compositions. It’s definitely an eclectic set.”
Proceeds from Tuesday’s Local Jazz Composers concert will benefit not only the Greenville Jazz Collective but also Loaves & Fishes, a food rescue organization that serves nearly 100 agencies throughout Greenville County.
“We wanted to make this (concert) part of Giving Tuesday, so we decided to partner with another nonprofit,” Hoover said. “And we thought (Loaves & Fishes) would be a good organization to partner with, especially at this time of year.”