BRATTLEBORO — Brooks Memorial Library is throwing a party backed by some of the best-loved American songs ever written, and you're invited.
On Saturday, Sept. 21, at 7 p.m., at American Legion Post 5 on 32 Linden St., internationally acclaimed jazz musician Chris Bakriges and his quartet will present “The Great American Songbook: A Night of Jazz and Dancing.”
What has become known as The Great American Songbook is a canon of the most important and influential American popular songs of the 20th century, principally from musical theater and Hollywood musical film from the 1920s through the 1950s.
The evening gala - which includes light refreshments, a cash bar, and dancing - will feature not only music from the Great American Songbook, but also bossa nova and West African pieces.
This benefit for the Friends of Brooks Memorial Library helps to support the library's public access computing and lifelong learning programs.
“This benefit will have good music and open hearts,” says Bakriges. “There are lot of great musicians in Vermont, and we are glad to be presenting some of them at this event.”
Chris Bakriges' quartet includes Bakriges on piano, Steve MacLauchlan on saxophone, Eric Nathan on drums, and Rich Mollin on bass.
Special guests for the evening will be vocalists Molly Melloan and Patti Smith, and percussionist Steve Leicach.
Bakriges, an internationally acclaimed jazz pianist and educator, has performed around the world, including in extended tours of India, Pakistan, Turkey, England, Canada, and the Czech Republic.
In the early 1990s, he was invited to become music director of “Jazzfest” on Northeast Public Radio after its director, Alan Chartock, heard the ensemble in concert with Bobby McFerrin and David Darling.
Broadcast monthly for four years from WAMC in Albany, “Jazzfest” became the only live jazz radio program being aired at that time in the United States.
In addition to performing his compositions, Bakriges was able to perform live with many acclaimed artists such as Kenny Burrell, Bernard Purdie, Lee Shaw, and Pat Metheny's original rhythm section of Danny Gottleib and Mark Egan.
A scholar, Bakriges earned his doctorate in ethnomusicology/musicology from York University in Toronto and studied with such jazz luminaries as Oscar Peterson, Jaki Byard, Anthony Braxton, Nadi Qamar, Harold Danko, Billy Taylor, and Frederick Simmons, as well as with Indian classical masters Pandit Sushil Mukherjee and Tandore Vishwanathan.
Bakriges teaches at both the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston and Elms College in Chicopee, Mass.
The idea for the benefit came from Bakriges himself, who several years ago gave the library a highly successful jazz benefit based on the works of Henri Matisse.
Bakriges also has released an acclaimed CD inspired by Matisse's paper cutout “Jazz.”
“Jazz and the American Songbook have long been wedded together,” says Bakriges. “Musicians have had a wonderful and complicated relationship with this music. Jazz musicians still use it, and this distinct repertoire has been institutionalized around the world.”
Although Ella Fitzgerald was not the first to do so, she was fundamental in establishing this canon in the popular imagination in her influential Songbook series on Verve in the 1950s and 1960s, which collated 252 songs.
Songwriter and critic Alec Wilder, in his 1972 seminal study of this music, “American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950” (Oxford University Press), provided a list of the artists he believes belong to the Great American Songbook canon, as well as his ranking of their relative worth, including Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, and Harold Arlen.
“The Songbook is uniquely placed culturally, involving many musical traditions,” says Bakriges. “And as it has a rhythmical bedrock of West African music, we are also including in our show some music from that part of the globe.”
Bakriges also is welcoming percussionist Steve Leicach, who will add bossa nova and samba to the mix - music that also has origins in West African rhythms.
“As a vocalist for this music, we have Molly Melloan who sings a killer Portuguese. And for the more traditional Songbook fare, the terrific Patti Smith from the Wilmington area will give the audience their fill of 'Night and Day' and 'The Man I Love,'” Bakriges adds.
“Since this music is great to dance to, we are not only pleased to be able to have a dance floor, but before the concert begins to provide some mini-lessons in swing dance, giving everyone a chance to take part in this fun,” he says.
Bakriges explains that he is always delighted to assist Brooks Memorial Library:
“This library is a forward-looking institution, which not only has great books, but provides so many other services to the community. The Friends do such a great service to keep the institution lively.”
Formed in 1990, and officially organized in March 1991, The Friends of Brooks Memorial Library supports the Library in providing the highest quality library services to the community by means of advocacy, public relations and fundraising.
Its major fundraising events include three annual book sales, and concerts and other special events, all of which work to support the library's Lifelong Learning programs.
These include the popular First Wednesdays lecture series, the Children's Library, teen programs, and media promotions of public events, the library's print and electronic newsletter, and equipment and other supplies purchased for the library.