»culture ON THE TOWN
Real-Time Music By Alyssa Brown
Seay, who has traveled extensively with her husband GERRI AND CLARENCE SEAY — owners of B Sharp’s, a Clarence, himself an accomplished jazz musician, says jazz traditional jazz listening room — see stars aligning for a culture is more widely understood overseas. “Traditional jazz Capital City jazz renaissance. Tallahassee, rich in jazz talclubs are listening rooms where the music is focal and not ent and history as well as an assortment of jazz-centered a background element.” This concept — music, sans props, events, is in the midst of a cultural resurgence spurred special effects or screaming crowd — can seem foreign, espeby revitalized Midtown and Frenchtown areas as well as cially to younger generations for whom entertainment and Gaines Street’s transition from thoroughfare to shopping performer/audience interaction are one and the same. In a and entertainment district. jazz listening room, the interaction is between the artists, The Seays hope to capitalize on the cultural shift to weave who produce music through spontaneous improvisation. jazz more prominently into Tallahassee’s cultural fabric. To those unfamiliar with it, jazz may seem enigmatic. Among this group, the question of why, as Tallahassee’s cultural scene thrives, jazz has not made greater organic gains underscores a foundational belief among those who are familiar with the music: listening to jazz is an art form in and of itself. From a conventional perspective, jazz is young, according to Florida State University Jazz Professor Scotty Barnhart, trumpeter and Grammy Award-winning director of the Count Basie Orchestra. Barnhart says mainstream Americans have more widely recognized jazz as art in the last 20 or 30 years largely because of Wynton An appreciative B Sharp’s audience listens to jazz saxophonist Greg Tardy (right), who has performed internationally and now teaches at the University of Tennessee–Knoxville. Also performing was Bill Marsalis’ dual success as a Peterson (above), professor of Jazz Studies at Florida State University. classical and jazz musician.
138 March–April 2014
TALLAHASSEEMAGAZINE.COM
TRISTIN KROENING
Jazz is Making a Capital Comeback