Upcoming Concerts

Novel Jazz Septet Concerts, 2024 

March 20, 2024

Dear Friends of Novel Jazz...

    We made it!  Spring is finally here!  I wanted to share a little of what we are planning for Novel Jazz in 2024.  We are delighted to announce that this is our 20th season, our "vicennial", of sharing jazz around New England!  This all started from very humble beginnings in 2004, when we started doing regular public jazz concerts at the Skidompha Public Library in Damariscotta, as a way to keep jazz alive in mid-coast Maine.  The musicians of Novel Jazz collectively share over two centuries of experience with the jazz idiom.   So it came as some surprise when, at one of these Skidompha concerts, someone requested yet another Duke Ellington or Billy Strayhorn song that no one had ever heard of.  This prompted yours truly to ask the naive question, "I wonder how many songs Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn wrote?"   The answer to this is, "Thousands!",  which launched me on the quest to explore this music.  This led me to the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., which houses >400 book-boxes of the Duke Ellington Collection.  Musical gravity then pulled me across D.C. to the Strayhorn Collection, housed at the Library of Congress, to view musical manuscripts by Billy Strayhorn.   Both libraries house original manuscripts of well-known and lesser-known compositions by both composers. Novel Jazz musicians study these manuscripts, listen to recordings, arrange the pieces for the septet, rehearse and perform these compositions for audiences around Maine and New Hampshire during the spring, summer and fall.   

I'm happy to report here that we are still doing it!  It is also worthy of note that 2024 marks 125 years since Duke Ellington’s birth (i.e. his “quasquicentennial”…yes, that is a real word!).   So, there are lots of reasons to celebrate these two icons of jazz in 2024!  We are building our 2024 schedule at this time but I wanted to bring your attention to our first show which will be on Saturday, 27 April, 2024, 7PM at The Hill Arts (76 Congress Street, Munjoy Hill, Portland, ME 04101; (207) 347-7177;  https://www.thehillarts.me/).  For this show, we will celebrate Duke's actual 125th birthday (which happens just two days later).  

And as if that were not enough, April is Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM), a music festival held every April in Canada and the United States, in honor of jazz as an early American art form.   JAM was created in 2001 by John Edward Hasse, curator of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, and world renowned expert on Duke Ellington.  We'll also be celebrating world-wide International Jazz Day which happens at the end of April every year.  International Jazz Day is an International Day declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2011 "to highlight jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners of the globe."   The idea came from jazz pianist and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Herbie Hancock.  Jazz Day is chaired by Hancock and the UNESCO Director-General. 

So please come out to The Hill Arts on 27 April at 7PM for some live jazz by the Duke and Strays, as well as to celebrate a most auspicious planetary alignment of  Jazz Appreciation Month, International Jazz Day, Duke's quasquicentennial and Novel's vicennial!   This doesn't happen every day!

Sincerely,

Barney Balch

PS  Please watch this space for our complete concert listings to follow soon.   We hope to see you for some hot, sizzling jazz this year!