Groton Hill Is A ‘Hub’ For Jazz Lovers
Central Massachusetts center offers listening, jamming, ensemble and lesson opportunities
Musicians lay down some licks at one of the Groton Hill Music Center’s Tuesday night jazz jam sessions. The jams, which draw as many as 100 people, are just one of several offerings the center has for jazz lovers and musicians. (Photo courtesy Groton Hill Music Center)
About 30 years ago, as the commercial Internet was just dawning, I worked for a visionary fellow who published the daily newspaper in Auburn, NY. He certainly saw the potential for digital communications, and tried very hard to convince his Chamber of Commerce pals the city and surrounding region needed to up its 1’s and 0’s game if it wished to grab the 21st century by the tail.
He would point out Auburn was about equidistant to three major academic hubs – Syracuse and Syracuse University to the east/northeast, Rochester and the Rochester Institute of Technology to the northwest, and Ithaca and Cornell University almost directly south. I think he saw the potential for the Auburn area to become something akin to North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, surrounded by the top-rate universities in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill.
When he would try to convince people of the importance of being in the vanguard of the digital economy, he’d point to a rough whiteboard map he had drawn up and say with great emphasis, “We can either be the hub of the wheel – or the hole in the doughnut” (spoiler alert – the doughnut hole won unless you count the water-guzzling bitcoin-mining operations on nearby Seneca Lake).
The phrase (obviously) stuck with me, and I am constantly looking for those places that become “hubs” – especially as I dive deeper into playing an instrument – around providing an immersive musical environment that goes beyond a short-term camp curriculum. Most likely they are to be found either in or near academic centers like the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music, which offers a community division, or the New England Conservatory’s adult education program. There are numerous standalone centers, but they tend to concentrate on students still in pre-collegiate years.
How about a year-round community center for music education and appreciation for folks of all ages, that doesn’t require enrolling in an academic institution? Are there any?
Enter Groton Hill Music Center in Groton, MA. It’s as close to a platonic ideal of a comprehensive one-stop shop of education, entertainment, and community engagement that serves all ages, from toddler to adult, with many musical genres, as I have ever seen; but we’ll stick to its jazz menu for now.
Interested in Jazz Hang, a six-week online jazz appreciation and analysis course? Groton Hill has it. A four-week in-person intro to jazz theory? Yup. How about a September-June improv class? Check. Every-other-week jam sessions? Indeed. And one might say the cherry on top is an architectural gem of a concert space bringing world-class performers into central Massachusetts – Hiromi’s Sonicwonder is coming in late September, followed through the fall and winter by folks including Kenny Garrett, Branford Marsalis, John Scofield, and more.
All these things help feed into one another, according to Dave Fox, Groton Hill’s jazz and contemporary department chair.
“Feeder program probably isn’t the best way to say it, but we think of everything feeding into each other,” Dave told 8495Jazz. “We want our students to go to jams. We want people who are coming to jams to potentially be coming to our music school. We want everybody going to both those things to enjoy the fact we are bringing musicians like Terence Blanchard into central Massachusetts. It’s unique in that sense for sure.”
Dave has been teaching at the center since 2011, when it was called Indian Hill Music School in another location, and has seen it grow in leaps and bounds.
When he started teaching at Indian Hill, the school catered mainly to school-aged students. For adults, there was a big band composed of professional and dedicated amateur musicians, and one small jazz ensemble called Jazz Lab.
“It was the same players for a very long time, and they were players who were looking for more ensemble experience outside the big band, in more of a small group setting with more emphasis on learning songs, but also improvisation,” Dave said. “The small ensembles offer just that opportunity. We started with one, maybe two, and in the last four years we are up to five adult ensembles, one teen ensemble, and I think this year we are adding more because our enrollment has grown so much.”
To illustrate the way Groton Hill’s various programs feed into each other, Dave mentioned the Tuesday night jazz jams.
“It’s an amazing way to get introduced to us for someone who wants to check out the school. On jazz night we also have an improv kind of lecture before the jam. If you think you might want to play but say ‘I can only play a G major arpeggio,’ the host may say ‘How about a B-flat blues scale?’ and he’ll work with you on that and make sure the house band plays a B-flat blues. It’s a way of getting everybody to jump in the pool.”
If that player becomes comfortable jamming the B-flat blues, then, Dave said, improv classes can help them take the next step.
“If you are at a proficient enough level that you know what you’re working on, like you know your scales and etudes, but you’ve never improvised, then the improv course is a good choice – you know how to play a harmonic minor scale, now you would be able to plug that in to a ii-V-I chord progression, for example.”
And if a student tries to take too big a leap? Then the teacher helps bring them back – to master the baby steps before they try to play “Giant Steps,” if you will. Pete Robbins, the center’s director of education and programs, is himself one of Dave’s drum students.
“When I get too excited and get ahead of myself and think I can play something I’m not quite ready to play in the way I think I’m able to play it, he’ll say ‘Good, I like what you’re doing – pull back, you know this has to be precise and strong in every aspect and you know that’s not what you’re doing. So pull back, take it slow and you’ll get there.’ That’s a universal approach throughout the school.”
Could that universal approach within the school be a model elsewhere? Could a school of jazz based on how Groton Hill does it be created much as the School of Rock has built a 400-franchise, 70,000-student worldwide entity, instead of the fragmented and uneven offerings so prevalent in community jazz education?
Dave and Pete aren’t quite ready to go there: “I’ve had students who have benefited from the School of Rock,” Dave said. “It is a different archetype than what we do, though. It is a franchise. If you are looking to do that, your priority is going to have to be to be able market something to a mass audience and have it tie in to something that is very much a part of popular culture.”
“We can’t lean enough into believing in our mission as a non-profit,” Pete said, “and that mission is to bring the highest quality performance and education programs to the region, to the community. That’s what drives us, not profit.”
(In the interest of full disclosure, the publisher of 8495Jazz has enrolled in the center’s Jazz Hang. As with all programs and concerts the 8495Jazz staff attends, full retail price was paid and no further consideration was offered or requested).
The Groton Hill Big Band, made up of both professional and amateur musicians, rehearses “Boplicity” from Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool album.
Out and About with 8495Jazz
These listings are a curated sampling of shows in the region. As an independent resource for jazz news, 8495Jazz does not receive any consideration, free tickets, or affiliate fees for these listings. Please confirm events are still happening directly with the venue.
8495Jazz Wild Card Gig of the Week
La Zingara, Bethel, CT
Swing du Jour Quintet (gypsy jazz on the patio), Wednesday, August 20, 7 pm. GA from $17.85 for single to $87.21 for parties of 4-6 including service fee.
8495Jazz Spur of the Moment Gig TODAY
Waryas Park, Poughkeepsie, NY
Jazz in the Valley: Jazzmeia Horn, Bobby Sanabria, Javon Jackson, Lenny White, Lisa Fischer, Dr. Eddie Henderson, Orrin Evans, John Patitucci, music starts 12 pm. GA $70 at the gate. Students $20.
Other Shows This Week
Music Mountain, Falls Village, CT
Galvanized Jazz Band (trad jazz), Saturday, Aug. 23, 7 pm. GA $35-$50, student/teacher/veteran $5-20.
Elicit Brewing Co., Manchester, CT
Hartford Jazz Orchestra, Monday, August 18, 7:30 pm. Free.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA
Berklee Garden Bar Series feat. Manuela Sanchez Goubert (vocal), Wednesday, August 20, 6 pm. Free.
VFW Post 399, Westport, CT
Sambaleza (Brazilian jazz) Thursday, August 21, 7:30 and 8:45 pm. GA $20.76 for first show, $10.76 for late show. Student/vet $15.76 for early show.
Guilford GreenStage Festival, Guilford, CT
New London Big Band/Sean Nelson Jazz Orchestra, today, 7:30 pm. Free.
The Side Door, Old Lyme, CT
Sarah Hanahan Quartet (sax, combo), Friday, August 22 and Saturday, August 23, 8 pm. GA $54.45-$59.75, student $27.98 including service fee.
Pizzeria Boema, Lenox, MA
Monday Night Jazz w/Andy Wrba & Friends, Monday, August 18, 6 pm. Free.
The Parlour, Providence, RI
Thomas White Project EP release show (combo), today, 4 pm. All ages, GA $10.
Alchemy, Providence, RI
The John Allmark Jazz Orchestra, Monday, August 18, 8 pm. $20.77 including service fee.
Jams
Cafe Nine, New Haven CT
New Haven Jazz Underground jam, usually 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month: free admission
Saturday jazz jam most Saturdays, 4 pm. Free.
Blackeyed Sally’s, Hartford, CT
Jazz Wednesdays, featured set 7 pm, jam session afterward.
Carmine’s, East Hartford, CT
Paisley’s All Star Memorial Jam, 3rd Tuesday of the month, 7:30 pm. House band set followed by jam. Free.
Mahoney’s, Poughkeepsie, NY
Poughkeepsie Jazz Project, every Tuesday, 7 pm. Free.
Jazz Societies and Organizations (great info on events, festivals, and more)
Jazz Society of Fairfield County
Jazz Fridays at Three Sheets New Haven 1st/3rd Fridays from 6-9pm
Jazz Thursdays at The Cannon New Haven every other Thurs from 7-9pm.
8495Jazz takes its name from the two Interstate highways that cross our region, I-84 and I-95. Within short driving distances from either, you can find incredible entertainment, from local jams to world-famous festivals in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. 8495Jazz: From Newburgh to Newport!
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