Editorial
Front Page - Friday, November 6, 2009
Center for Creative Arts to host 5th annual Jazz Café fundraiser
Samara Litvack
Jazz music may be underrepresented on current Top 40 radio, but that doesn’t mean the kids these days aren’t listening to it. As a matter of fact, some students in the Chattanooga area sing it on a regular basis, and want the community to get more excited about it too.
On the afternoon of Sunday, Nov. 15, at 3 p.m., the vocal repertoire class of Chattanooga High School Center for the Creative Arts will transform the North River Civic Center in Hixson into its fifth annual Jazz Café.
“It’s a fundraiser for the whole music program,” says Neshawn Calloway, director of vocal music at the fine arts magnet school.
Calloway taught for several years at Chattanooga State before coming to the Center for Creative Arts. There, she had a jazz vocal ensemble that performed throughout the community. When she changed schools, she brought the tradition with her.
“I thought it would be fun to do the same thing with these kids and get them out into the community to perform in different venues,” Calloway says. “It turned into an annual event and we made it a fundraiser for the vocal program.”
Today, she teaches five high school choral groups, one of which – the Vocal Repertoire class – will be performing at the Jazz Café.
“We spend the year working on different kinds of solo literature and one of the first genres that we work on is jazz,” she says.
The 18-person ensemble will perform a variety of classics, and solo performances will include “God Bless the Child,” “Witchcraft,” “This Joint is Jumpin,” “Misty” and more.
In the past, jazz groups from the community have participated, but this year Calloway’s students, who must audition for their solo spots, will do all performances.
While vocal students at the Center for Creative Art learn about and perform jazz in their high school years, Calloway’s love of the genre grew as she earned her undergrad at the University of Memphis.
When she came to the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga to earn her master’s in music education, she fell in love with a somewhat different sound. While doing an internship at Bessie Smith Hall (back before it was open to the public), she had the chance to research Bessie Smith, the local “Empress of the Blues.”
“I’d never even heard of Bessie Smith until I came here,” Calloway says. “I was asked to perform at one of the opening events, to do some of her songs. That’s when I started listening to her music and I really became fascinated with her style.”
Calloway created a niche for herself by blending Bessie Smith’s bluesy influence with that of classic jazz performers, like Sarah Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald.
“I’ve done shows where I do them both,” she says. “Part of the show is blues and part of the show is jazz.”
And, as a teacher, Calloway has been able to use her deep-rooted love of both genres to inspire a new generation of vocalists, who now have great appreciations for the classics.
Anyone interested in hearing Calloway’s personal fusion of jazz and blues will have the opportunity to do so at the upcoming Jazz Café. When the Vocal Repertoire finishes its performances, she will take the stage to do some classic numbers of her own.
In the last few years, Calloway says the jazz benefit has grown, and she feels the cur
rent Sunday afternoon time slot is the perfect fit.
“People come from church and we serve dinner, so they can have dinner here,” she says. “The whole show lasts maybe an hour, an hour and a half, so it doesn’t take up a lot of your Sunday afternoon but it’s certainly a nice way to spend (it).”
An expected 150 to 200 people will turn out for the jazz benefit and tickets are reserved on a first come, first serve basis. Tickets are $15 and include a plate of food, catered by Choo Choo Barbecue. Those interested in attending Jazz Café
should contact Calloway at
423-802-8860 or calloway_neshawn@hcde.org.
Funds from Jazz Café provide a number of things for the vocal program, including assistance with expenses for choir trips, as well as transportation to a spring choral festival and more.
Chattanooga High School Center for Creative Arts is a fine arts magnet school with a college preparatory structure, open to students grades 6 through 12. The school provides a well-balanced academics program that meets state requirements for graduation in the college track and is supported by more than 70 fine arts classes, including those that focus on communications, music, dance, theatre and visual arts.
For more information, visit www.centerforcreativearts.
net.
|
|