Your Guide to a Saturday Night Jazz with City Arts Nashua

Submitted by Judith Carlson

If you enjoy an evening of entertaining music, mark your calendars for Saturday, October 19 when City Arts Nashua presents “Old, New and Sometimes Blue, But Always Jazz!” with Pam Purvis on vocals and keyboard, Bob Ackerman on piano, sax, clarinet and flute and Tim Maynard on drums.

The program takes place at the Nashua Community Music School, with the proceeds benefitting the West Pearl Street Mural project.

Sponsors for the event are the Nashua Community Music School, Nashua Radisson Hotel and Darrell’s Music Hall.

Ackerman and Purvis will be performing some of the great songs from the American Song Book, the Pop Song Book and some Blues, all in their own entertaining jazz style.

“We are delighted that Pam and Bob have donated their time and wonderful talents, coming to Nashua from the New Jersey/New York area, to help us bring a significant piece of public art to downtown,” said Marjorie Bollinger Hogan, president of City Arts Nashua.

Tim Maynard is a freelance percussionist/guitarist from North Weymouth, Mass.. He has played with various theater, choral, blues, rock, and jazz groups in the Boston area.

Purvis and Ackerman have a musical approach involving the voice and horn in duet. "We want our music to swing and get you moving, but we are also interested in subtleties of color, harmony and nuance," Purvis said.

“I especially like using the clarinet because it blends well with the timbre of Pam's voice and also because it has been largely neglected by jazz reed players,” Ackerman said.

“I feel that I can play the clarinet in a way that will appeal to even the die-hard sax lovers. It is an incredibly expressive and beautiful instrument,” he added.

Purvis' roots are in Louisiana and Texas. She began singing jazz in Paterson, NJ at Gulliver's, now just a fond memory.

“It was a good place to begin because I met and sang with Chuck Wayne, Joe Puma, Gabor Zabo, Joe Morello, Jack Six, and Bob Ackerman. The latter of these fine musicians I decided to keep,” Purvis said.

The couple has been married and working together ever since and have eight recordings together to date. They have performed all over the US, in Europe and Mexico. In addition, Purvis currently sings with Joe Cohn, Richard Wyands, Dennis Irwin, Earl May, Chip Jackson, Steve Johns, and many other great musicians.

“I credit my vocal style to living with a horn player,” she explained.

“I used to hang out with the great scat singer Joe Carroll. When I asked him how he learned to improvise like that, he said, ‘Listen to the horn players, baby, listen to the horn players,’" she added.

Her sense of lyrics she credits to her training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. "My approach to lyrics and phrasing is 'of the moment.' When I sing a song it is always for the first time, and therefore I hope it will always be fresh and always emotional.”

"I want you to see and feel the images in the song. I come from a part of the country where there is a lot of color and energy. I hope you'll find these things in my singing," she added

Ackerman is a world-renowned jazz artist, teacher, clinician, composer, and expert on horn technology. He started playing saxophone at age nine in New Jersey.

“My little brother and I would tell our mother we were playing ball and then hop a train to New York where we would stand outside and listen to Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldrige, and Gene Krupa during the Saturday matinees at the Metropole. Listening to those guys, I knew what I wanted to do," he said

Educated at Columbia University, he studied privately on woodwinds with the legendary Joe Allard, composition with Arthur Murphy, and classical flute with Tom Nyfenger and Alan Winkleman, and most recently with Keith Underwood.

“I soon found myself working with such diverse artists as Phillip Glass and Steve Reich, Joe Morello, Mike Mellillo, John Coates, Coleman Hawkins, Ray Block, Paquito D’Rivera and Shorty Baker. Most recently I have recorded with Mike Richmond, Wilber Morris, Denis Charles and Bob Kaplan, Rudy Petschauer, Adam Scone, Cameron Brown, Walter Perkins, and Vic Juris,” he said.

Ackerman is considered a musician's musician, being a prolific composer and arranger, masterful improviser, vintage instrument expert and accomplished player of soprano, alto, tenor, bari saxophone; bass and Bb clarinet; soprano, alto, and bass flute; all of which can be heard at one time or another on his various Chase Music and Cadence recordings. He has received grants from the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts Grant for his compositions.

“With his legendary shop, Progressive Winds, Bob’s made a massive mark on the saxophone world, selling, restoring, and repairing saxophones and mouthpieces for some of the greatest players this side of the moon,” said Todd S. Feldman of RS Berkeley Musical Instruments.

Tickets are available at the door for $15 and $10 for seniors in students. Doors open at 7 pm with the concert at 7:30. Click here for more information.

---

The West Pearl Street Mural Project, “Vivian’s Dream,” is a major 40-foot by 35-foot full color historic mural on the wall behind the parking lot of TD Bank on the corner of Main and West Pearl. The public art project, to be painted by Nashua mural artist Barbara Andrews, will bring a view of West Pearl Street in 1909 to a prominent 2013 downtown location, enhancing downtown Nashua and offering residents, businesses, restaurant patrons, shoppers and visitors an historic public art experience.

City Arts Nashua is a volunteer, non-profit organization that promotes arts and culture in the Greater Nashua area. It acts as a catalyst and fosters cooperation, collaboration and coordination among the artistic and cultural community, to help artists and arts organizations thrive, and to facilitates greater synergy among artists and arts organizations, business, government and the general public.