YSU prof’s jazz artist project blossoms
Staff report
YOUNGSTOWN
Recreating the music of the late Cleveland jazz composer Tadd Dameron was a labor of love for Youngstown State University music professor Kent J. Engelhardt.
He’d been listening to a well-worn Dameron album for 35 years. But Engelhardt didn’t realize how many others in the jazz music world share his appreciation for Dameron’s work, or that his research professorship project would morph to create a tribute concert series and a recording.
Rehearsing with a newly organized, 15-member band made up of collegiate jazz educators from YSU and other universities, Engelhardt will perform the music from Dameron’s final album and serve as co-leader for three concerts: tonight at 8 at the Bop Stop in Cleveland; 6 p.m. Sunday at BluJazz in Akron; and June 22-24 at the Tri-Cl Jazz Fest in Cleveland.
“These are major venues where touring jazz musicians perform,” said Engelhardt. “In my heart, I’m still a kid with a dream of becoming a jazz musician, and this is a dream come true.”
He applied for a 2016-17 research professorship focused on Dameron’s music because the composer’s work, though available on LPs and CDs, was not available in musical scores and parts. For the project, titled “Tadd Dameron: The Magic Touch,” he transcribed, notated and edited the scores and parts for Dameron’s final album as a bandleader, recorded in 1962.
“What’s really exciting about the timing of all of this is that Dameron would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year,” he said. The composer and pianist was just 48 when he died in 1965.
Engelhardt credits Stephen Enos, a friend and fellow musician at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, for helping to organize the band and schedule the shows. Enos will share the bandleader role.