Meshel donates jazz sculptures to YSU

Photo

Harry Meshel

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Former state Sen. Harry Meshel, a member of the Youngstown State University Board of Trustees, former president of the Ohio State Senate and a longtime fan of jazz, has donated sculptures of three legendary musicians to the jazz studies program in YSU’s Dana School of Music.

The sculptures by artist Ed Dwight depict Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis and will be on display at the Butler Institute of American Art, 524 Wick Ave.

“This gift is symbolic of two of Sen. Meshel’s great passions in life — YSU and jazz,” YSU President Cynthia E. Anderson said at an unveiling ceremony at the Butler over the weekend.

Meshel, a 1949 graduate of Youngstown College, said the donation is his way to pay tribute to the many talented faculty and students who have been associated with YSU’s jazz program.

“What they do is extraordinary,” he said. “It is my privilege to be able to contribute these sculptures as an inspiration to our students and faculty.”

The sculptures are the latest of many gifts Meshel has made to the jazz-studies program over the past several years. He also established the Senator Harry Meshel Jazz Scholarship.

“Sen. Meshel has been a regular at our jazz concerts for many, many years,” said Kent Engelhardt, associate professor and coordinator of jazz studies.

Engelhardt and Meshel also announced the establishment of the Jazz Visitors Fund to bring regional and national touring jazz musicians to the YSU campus to perform and teach.

“This fund will create opportunities for our students to experience national and regional jazz musicians in the daily academic environment,” Engelhardt said.

Meshel said his love for jazz started when he was about 10 years old.

Over years of attending performances locally, as well as in New York while attending graduate school at Columbia University, Meshel said he met Davis and Parker and befriended Gillespie.

He purchased the sculptures 25 years ago after meeting Dwight at an unveiling of a sculpture of Ohio Speaker of the House Vern Riffe.

The sculptures are part of Dwight’s “Jazz: An American Art Form,” a series of more than 70 bronzes that depict the evolution of jazz from its roots in Africa to the contemporary stars of the jazz era.