Passing Along All that Jazz
By Nancy Luse
As a youngster living in New Jersey, Eric Byrd recalls his father coming home from work, sitting with The Philadelphia Inquirer and listening to the records of Earl Gardner and other jazz greats. “I thought this is not Earth, Wind & Fire,” he says. When he got to college and heard Miles Davis on a recording, “that was it” for the man who has a career performing and advancing his love of jazz.
“Jazz is America’s music,” says Byrd. “We need to do a better job of exposing it to America.” To that end, the Frederick vocalist and pianist for the Eric Byrd Trio—which also includes bassist Bhagwan Khalsa and drummer Alphonso Young Jr.—has started the Jazz School.
Located in the Frederick Rock School, 5732 Industry Lane, the Jazz School is in session Sunday afternoons for 75 minutes delving into books of music and going over the exercises Byrd has given students the previous week. But even more integral in the lessons are the improvisations and solo performances best known to jazz. “It’s freedom,” Byrd says, and exciting to watch and hear.
“The group love that’s there supports you and gives you all that community stuff. It builds confidence and self-esteem,” says Byrd. “I want to give kids an opportunity to be creative. It sounds simple, but if kids are exposed to jazz, they’re going to play jazz.”
The school has two classes, one for middle and high schoolers and another for college students and older adults. “No experience is needed,” Byrd says, save “can you find the notes on your horn and read music.” The school encompasses traditional jazz instruments—brass, woodwinds, guitar, piano and a rhythm section, along with vocals. Students run the gambit from those playing in school bands to “adults who always played by ear or used to play and stopped” but now want to resume.
The Jazz School also offers a summer camp, one week in June and another in July. Last year at the first camp, “we were hoping for 20 and we got 41,” Byrd says. The camp drew students from outside Frederick, including a father and daughter from Virginia.
Outside the Jazz School, Byrd also creates opportunities for his students. For instance, this past Christmas when his combo played at the Weinberg Center for the Arts for A Charlie Brown Christmas, students took part.
The Eric Byrd Trio has been around for nearly 25 years, “as long as I’ve been married,” Byrd says with a smile. They have recorded and toured, including trips to South America through an ambassador program of the State Department and Kennedy Center, making a name for themselves over the years.
“We’re old people now,” Byrd says at 53, and it’s time to pass the torch to another generation of musicians. www.ericbyrdtrio.com