Earlier this month, drummer Lewis Nash led a small band of well-known Knoxville musicians—pianist Keith Brown, bassist Taylor Coker, trumpeter Vance Thompson, and sax player Greg Tardy—through a set of songs in tribute to Freddie Hubbard. (It was the late trumpet player’s birthday.) The Tuesday night show at the Square Room was well-attended, which isn’t always the case for touring jazz acts in Knoxville, and it heralded the return of the Knoxville Jazz Festival after a two-year hiatus.
The Nash concert was the first of a handful of anticipated events leading up to the festival, which is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 27-29. The venue has not been announced.
Nelda Hill, the festival’s managing director, and Donald Brown, its artistic director, are in negotiations with Ravi Coltrane to headline the Knoxville Jazz Festival. Coltrane, the 49-year-old son of John and Alice Coltrane, has distinguished himself as a modern-jazz saxophonist over the last two decades.
“He’s John Coltrane’s son and carries on that legacy, but he’s also very much in the vanguard of new jazz,” Hill says. (Hill is also on the board of directors of the Knoxville History Project.) “The first time I heard him was at an Elvin Jones tribute, several years ago, right after Elvin Jones died. He stood in his father’s place in that band.”
Between 2006 and 2012, the festival showcased a number of notable jazz players—pianist Harold Mabern, clarinet legend Don Byron, guitarist Lionel Loueke, and Jimmy Cobb, the drummer on Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.
“We’re a small, not flashy festival,” Hill says. “We try to put our money on a couple of really good acts that wouldn’t get to Knoxville otherwise. They’re not always well-known outside the jazz world, and yet, if you can get people there, they seem to have a really good time. I think Lewis Nash was a great example of that.”
The festival’s focus on traditional jazz and veteran players isn’t an accident.
“We still have guys around who played with the first jazz players,” Hill says. “And if they’re still out there playing, I think we owe it to ourselves to listen to them and bring them in and let other people hear them. We like to think we provide people who don’t travel, or can’t travel, an opportunity to hear the kind of stuff they’d hear in large cities.”
Hill and the other festival organizers plan to host additional performances over the spring and summer as part of the lead-up to the festival weekend, which may also include an album-release show for Keith Brown. For updates and more information, visit knoxjazzfest.org.
Senior Editor Matthew Everett manages the Knoxville Mercury's arts & entertainment section, including the comprehensive calendar section—Knoxville’s go-to guide for everything worth doing in the area. You can reach Matthew at matthew@knoxmercury.com.
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