Pitt Jazz Seminar and Concert takes look at business side of music
Geri Allen and Tia Fuller want to pass along some of the lessons they have learned from jazz.
For Allen, it means continuing the high level of the Pitt Jazz Seminar and Concert taking place this week.
For Fuller, it's putting together an online site that will teach not only clues to playing music but the business of performing it, as well.
They will find ways of approaching their missions in a variety of ways at the Pitt event, which will culminate with a Nov. 1 concert at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland.
Allen says Nathan Davis, her mentor and predecessor at the University of Pittsburgh, is responsible for her thinking about the event.
“I am looking for ways of continuing the celebration of the music he created here,” says Pitt's current director of jazz studies. The award-winning pianist replaced Davis when he retired in 2013.
Saxophonist Fuller, who has a busy touring career and teaches at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, sees the need for a constant stream of education.
She is putting together an online subscription service she calls Tia Fuller University to advance that practical side and hopes to have it running by the summer.
“I see a lot of students who come out of school and don't have an understanding of how to get their work out there,” she says.
Her lessons will deal with playing, running the business of being a musician and even putting together a collection of clothes that can serve a player through a tour schedule without taking up too much space.
She credits saxophonist Javon Jackson and drummer Cecil Brooks III, a Pittsburgh native, with teaching her a great deal of what she knows about the business of jazz.
At the seminar, though, Fuller will examine another topic. On Oct. 31, she will offer a look at the history of women in jazz at the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium. It seems an appropriate presentation for a seminar and concert that has a strong collection of female players.
Besides Allen and Fuller, the event features drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and bassist Esperanza Spalding.
Allen says she didn't go out of her way to find female players, but simply came across a lineup that was available. Their strong work has helped empower younger female players who might be considering a role in jazz, she says.
The seminar and concert also will feature saxophonist Joe Lovano, trombonist Clifton Anderson and Afro Blue, an a cappella group from Howard University in Washington, D.C. All of the guests will perform at the concert.
Bob Karlovits is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at bkarlovits@tribweb.com or 412-320-7852.
