Academic conferences can be a snore for anyone who isn't
called professor.
But a conference on jazz? One that includes three live performances, dissects sexy revues and features an exhibit of classic photos of such icons as Billie Holliday, Charlie Parker and Count Basie? That sounds more like a celebration.
And that is the point of "Brilliant Corners: Jazz and Its Cultures," says E. Ann Kaplan, who founded the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook 20 years ago.
"I wanted to do something splashy, something scholarly and fun" to mark the milestone anniversary, says Kaplan, who continues to direct the interdisciplinary institute at Stony Brook University. The three-day conference on America's hottest homegrown art form begins Thursday with a panel exploring "What Is Jazz?" followed by a performance by the Vijay Iyer Trio. Pianist-composer Iyer is on the panel, along with professors from Yale, Columbia and other universities.
The first day is free, and the whole conference (except one performance) only $40. "It's affordable for the public and nice for the community," Kaplan says. Though she's had a "long relationship with jazz," she says, she put a more expert Stony Brook professor in charge: Krin Gabbard, professor of comparative literature and cultural studies, who has written several books on jazz.
The 20th anniversary conference makes academic sense, too, Gabbard says, because the study of jazz has changed radically in the past two decades, throughout the world. "Twenty years ago, you could take an isolated course in jazz history or jazz appreciation. Now, jazz studies is more interdisciplinary and more extensive."
Jazz and literature, jazz and art, jazz and dance, jazz and other countries, jazz and race, jazz and cocktails, jazz and sex - yes, really, the conference's 25 speakers will delve into these topics and more. Nonacademicians may occasionally find themselves befuddled by terms, Gabbard says: "Theorizing" means putting a subject into a larger cultural context - but won't spoil musical enjoyment.
The art exhibit, which starts Tuesday, includes two paintings - of Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong - by Stony Brook artist Al Jones, curator Olivia Mattis says. Jones "was a comedian, and he shared the stage with them" and other musicians. Mattis says she had trouble finding some famous images by photographer William P. Gottlieb, including one of Ella Fitzgerald, and then discovered that his widow lives in Great Neck. Delia Gottlieb lent several photos, Mattis says, and will attend the conference.
"Brilliant Corners: Jazz and Its Cultures," April 3-5, Humanities Building Room 1006, Stony Brook University, first day free, $25 for April 4 or 5, $40 for both, free for Stony Brook faculty, staff and students. To register and see program, visit stonybrook.edu /humanities. For information, call 631-632-9957. "Pops to Lady Day: Portraits in Jazz" exhibit, April 1-May 9, Humanities Building Room 1013. For 8 p.m. Saturday concert by Joe Lovano Quartet at the Staller Center, nearly sold out, $32, call 631-632-2787 or visit stallercenter.com.
'G' rated rock
A guy named Brady Rymer almost has to consider a life of song. And that is precisely the career chosen by the man with the musical moniker.
Rymer (no h, he points out) started early, forming a band in New Jersey with a group of friends, some of whom he'd known since seventh grade. From Good Homes played rock and roll for 13 years, opening for such legends as Bob Dylan, Dave Matthews and The Grateful Dead's Bob Weir.
Soon after the band started to dissolve in 1996, he says, Rymer became a dad - and gave birth to a new incarnation in his musical path. He was playing rock and roll again - but this time for families. "I'm 43, and I act 7," says Rymer, whose son, Gus, is 11, and daughter, Daisy, is 9. They've lived in Southold for the past five years, along with Rymer's wife, Bridget, the band's manager.
"We were vacationing out there, and we just found this house," says Rymer, who then lived in Manhattan. "It used to be a speakeasy, an old ballroom and a restaurant. It completely changed our lives."
By 2005, he'd gathered other musicians into a new group, Brady Rymer and the Little Band That Could. Some are parents he met on a playground or a preschool, he says. This month, they released a new CD, which they'll celebrate next Saturday in Westhampton Beach.
"I'm not doing it for the fame," says Rymer, who wrote most of the songs. "At the end of a good show for families, I feel the same as when I performed in front of college kids." Many parents thank him for playing music they can respond to, he says.
The lyrics could appeal to parents, too. They tackle such topics as taking a road trip, "a huggin' and a goin' crazy ... the summer when the relatives came" and sneaking out of bed one Saturday night to peek at a party of "grown-ups gone wild!" A lullaby for Daisy, written when she was born, is also included on the CD, along with a song authored by Woody Guthrie and another by Pete Seeger. "I think kids can understand more than we give them credit for," Rymer says. "Kids can see if you're dumbing it down. But when somebody's doing something passionately that they believe in, it's contagious and inspiring."
"Here Comes Brady Rymer and the Little Band That Could," Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center, 76 Main St., 1 p.m. April 5, $15-$25, 631-288-1500 or whbpac.org.
