Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Donny Thompson talks to local jazz artists and features their music. The Jazz Outreach Initiative is here to help you discover your own personal joy for jazz.
Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a Kun V studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Donny Thompson 0:18
You're listening to 91.5 Kun V jazz and more. And this is jazz outreach initiatives, the joy of jazz. I'm your host. Donnie Thompson, and this program is underwritten by d'agostinos tracheria, a small local, family owned Italian restaurant at the corner of West Flamingo and buffalo, specializing in classic, always scratch Italian favorites, handmade pastas and desserts. For more information, go to d'agostinos lv.com and in studio today, I'm excited to welcome President of the Las Vegas jazz society. Judy tart, welcome Judy. Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here. Judy tart, you're, of course, no stranger to the Kun V microphones here, having come in numerous times, supporting pledge drives and all kinds of other things here today, though, I know you haven't really had ever a chance to talk about the jazz society as much as we're going to today, so I'm really excited to share with our viewers more information about the jazz society and focus on you and the organization, and we'll, of course, play some great music Today. Sounds like a good idea. So for those who may not know about the Las Vegas jazz society, and especially its early days with Montgomery and others, can you maybe give us a short introduction about what the mission is and how you became involved.
Judy Tarte 1:35
Well, the mission is to support jazz in all its forms. And how I became involved, I can't remember, because it was back in 1975 76 when the association was just being formed. I think it was because I said, Oh, I'll be glad to help out. And here I am, over 50 years later.
Donny Thompson 1:59
Now were you, how did were you associated with anyone in the jazz community? Or did you just love jazz? Or, like, what was your influx there? All of the above,
Judy Tarte 2:11
I began going to the outside picnics that the musicians wives had. They sponsored the annual picnics. Now we do the jazz society does, but that that was back, I don't know, in the mid 70s, I believe, and I got really interested in the fact that they were being put on by citizens that were not musicians, but interested people or musicians wives, as I said, so that's when I started to volunteer, and then I started to hang out at the old musicians union, because I just love jazz. My father used to when I was a kid, take me around Detroit to go and listen to the records and introduce me to all the jazz artists at that time. So I just grew up with jazz and continued
Donny Thompson 3:02
that musicians union down by what used to be the Tropicana, that's correct, yep, used to be a great hang wasn't? Oh, it was wonderful. The greatest musicians in the world were hanging out there, you got it. They would go do their gigs. They would go across the street and do the relief bands, and then, you know, they would go over to the musicians union. They'd hang out till 536 7am in the morning. You know exactly, go home and sleep for a couple of hours, change clothes and go back and do it all over again. Yep. Those were the days certainly were, yep. So we have a few great recordings we're going to share with us our viewers today. So let's just take a few minutes and hear some music, I guess for Montgomery, Montgomery, right? He's, he's your sort of founding member, right?
Judy Tarte 3:45
Well, he certainly was. He came to town in the 60s, and he was a jazz player, because he was one of the Montgomery brothers with Wes, and his older brother was Wes, and then his brother buddy, and he was looking around for jazz to play jazz, and there wasn't really any place. So he got the be in his bonnet that he was going to make this a jazz town. So he gathered together interested citizens, musicians, a whole bunch of us, actually, myself being one of them. And he formed the jazz society in 1975 it was chartered, and then we really took off in 76 and started introducing the different hotels would have jazz.
Donny Thompson 4:34
That's a great back story. So let's go ahead and take a few minutes and let's hear some music from Mont Montgomery. This one from the montgomery brothers, 1961 album, groove yard. This is delirium composed by Buddy Montgomery, featuring monk Montgomery on bass. Wes Montgomery on drums and Buddy Thomas on piano. You.
Donna, welcome back to jazz outreach initiatives, the joy of jazz, underwritten by d'agostinos tracheria. This is your host, Donnie Thompson, and if you're just joining us, that was delirium from the montgomery brothers groove yard. And we're visiting with Las Vegas jazz Society president Judy tart, celebrating their 50th anniversary here in 2025 Judy, let's talk about some of the legendary artists the Las Vegas jazz society has brought in over the years. I know jazz outreach initiative co founder and artistic director Kenny Rampton told me on the phone call last week that one of his earliest inspirations for learning to play the trumpet was at a jazz society hosted concert with Dizzy Gillespie.
Judy Tarte 9:14
Yeah, remember that concert? Yes. So
Donny Thompson 9:16
tell us a little bit about some of those concerts that you had, and what have you planned for the big anniversary coming up?
Judy Tarte 9:25
Okay, let's go for some of those concerts. I remember concerts with Count Basie and his orchestra, Herbie Hancock, of course, founding with us were Joe Williams and Marlena Shaw, and they were they didn't perform much here in town, but we would showcase them. And in concert, Louis Belson, Ella Fitzgerald, Cal jater, just a number of them, all the legends and. Didn't answer to what we have coming up. We have a three day festival planned for the end of April, and it will kick off on Friday the 25th with an opening of an exhibit at the Nevada State Museum. And this will tell the story in honor of the musicians who came here during the 40s, 50s, 60s and settled in like get off the road, they could get their families together, have homes. A lot of them had boats. When I first came into town. That surprised me. But anyway, Lake Mead was a lot healthier at that time, and they would just have work, study, gigs and so on. What they became was essentially the pioneers of what now is Las Vegas, the capital of the entertainment of the world. And in fact, there are two, we're on the second, third generation, of some of these people. In fact, you have one that plays with you, and that's Danny Falcon, yeah. So that will be on Friday, from 630 to 10 at the museum, and then the next two days, we are having the music and workshops and that kind of thing at the Winchester Cultural Center. And the music part of that, the festival part, will go from three to eight, and then we've arranged for having after parties on both Friday, I mean, both Saturday and Sunday at Vic's jazz club, so we can continue to after the festivities outside, we can go to VIX, great
Donny Thompson 11:47
venue, VIX, of course, where the jazz Vegas orchestra has their third Wednesdays. Now, yeah, that's great. I want to talk a little about the Nevada State museum exhibit, because I think is it your board member and our mutual friend, Cheryl waits is helping with the curation of that and tell me a little bit about where did that stuff come from? Because I heard tell me, if this is right, these were really cool things that that were in boxes and garages and offices around town, and somehow somebody had these things. And where did they all end up coming together, you
Judy Tarte 12:22
might ask. Now, most of them are in my house, but for years. Well, yes, you're correct. Cheryl is on that committee, as is Rita Pardue. And what has happened not all of the people who have been members of the jazz society, or musicians, have had families that they could call upon after they passed to go through their things, and so rather than just let them go into the dumpsters, a number of us, because it's kind of like family in this town, you know, the musicians and the fans. We just all care for one another. So a number of times, we've been going over to their homes and going through putting aside things that might and should be preserved, like charts and memorabilia and so on and so forth. And so that's where most of the exhibit were coming from. So as I said, now they're stored. Most of them are stored in my house. What we resorted to is taking photos of the items, and then we're going, right now we're in the process of actually putting them together for these. This exhibit, we have photos and manuscripts of of people's memoirs and old record albums that have been restored, I mean, recorded here, and then just number of things like that.
Donny Thompson 13:59
That's fascinating. I, you know, I can't myself, wait to be participate in that, go to all those events. Judy, so, you know, obviously people are going to want to know how they can get a hold of information on planning this out. So, you know, the Facebook page, of course, Las Vegas jazz society has and the lvj s.org That's correct, the website will always have information there, and so we'll point people in that direction if they're interested.
Judy Tarte 14:25
Yes. And if you do have questions, there is a site number, telephone number, which is 702-415-1994, if you want that's that's a that's a number that's answered by one of our volunteers. We're an all volunteer organization, so if we're not snap right on it, we will get back to you. That's
Donny Thompson 14:49
great. All right, well, let's take a break and listen to some more music. You know, I told Kenny Rampton, since dizzy and the jazz society were interconnected with his life, I'd play a song he. Loves from dizzy's 1954 Afro album The song ko NAMA, which, by the way, was also released later in 1965 by Wes Montgomery on his album verve, jazz masters 14. This is for you Kenny, Ko nama. Dizzy Gillespie, You
Music 19:59
Music.
Donny Thompson 20:19
Welcome back to jazz outreach initiatives, the joy of jazz, underwritten by d'agostinos tracheria. This is your host, Donnie Thompson, and that was Dizzy Gillespie konama. And I'm joined again, of course, here in studio by Las Vegas jazz Society president, 50 years, right? Just about Judy tart, celebrating their 50th anniversary. Judy the Las Vegas jazz society, of course, is its own 501, c3, nonprofit. But in addition to your own programs at events, you also support fellow jazz organizations like UNLV, Division of jazz and commercial music. And of course, are a sponsor of jazz outreach initiatives. And UNLV is co hosted sixth annual, essentially Ellington high school jazz band festival on february 14 and 15th. Here in 2025 there at UNLV Ham Hall. I know that you've supported the kids over at Las Vegas Academy and over at Nevada School of the Arts, and you know you've included some great names on your board. Well, first of all, let me back up what? What makes the jazz society so interested in helping other nonprofits, because we kind of do the same thing. So we have similar missions, and I appreciate the fact that we all do work together to build this community.
Judy Tarte 21:33
Well, yes, because we're all wanting to perpetuate jazz as our American art form. So our mission is written in that we support one jazz in all its forms, but we also support other organizations to keep that jazz going and keeping it alive and our when we first formed, those were very key ingredients. Course, when we were first formed, we were really the only organization in town to do that at that time.
Donny Thompson 22:09
So you've, you've included some great names on your board of directors, folks like Ryan Baker, the great Tom Hall, Rita Pardue, of course, who is no stranger to our KU and V listeners. Una Lee, Associate Professor of jazz, Adam Schroeder, Tristan Selzer, Selzer, who's a great composer, pianist and trombonist here at UNLV, and a lot of other folks that are really talented and and they really work hard to make things successful for you folks, how does the evolution of your board, especially recently with the newer editions, provided direction for where you think the last just Las Vegas jazz society sees itself going, and maybe the next year or the years to come.
Judy Tarte 22:51
Well, as you said, 50 years is a long time, and many of us, well, myself and John Tom Hall, have been involved for almost that entire time. So we look around, we do not want to give up our mission, but we think, okay, we're tired. We have to get some younger people involved. And also, since it's more of a grassroots organization going into the community. We think that when we get younger people involved, they'll have more hip ideas as to what needs to be done, and also be able to touch base with other people. We don't want to be the old fogey organization, so we just, that's, that's the primary reason for expanding, and we want to last another 50 years. Well, I'm
Donny Thompson 23:49
super excited to see what you do with this new board and and the people that are on it, just as I said, they're just fantastic people, all of them, and we're, we're going to listen to a final track for the show here. But before we introduce it, let's make sure the audience knows where they can find the Las Vegas just jazz society and especially joined as members, because you you have donations available for members. What is it like? $40 or something a year? Well, that's
Judy Tarte 24:16
the membership fee, which gives you a cut for the the tickets that we of the events that we sponsor. We sponsor Sunday Jazz at the boot Laker. We also sponsor such things as the Ruvo center. We help with their brain center. And also we work in cooperation with a number of other organizations. But to answer your question, you can reach us@lvjs.org as you said, also, I wanted to point out that this festival we're having will be free to the public. As we're giving back to the to the community, but we will take contributions or so whatever, and and for that, you can also scroll down in the LV, js.org website and just indicate that you'd be willing to donate or help in some way. I might add the steering committee for this festival includes myself, Tom Hall, Uli geisenorfer And Cheryl waits,
Donny Thompson 25:35
that's great. Yes. Okay, so Judy tart, thank you again. That's been a really Joy hanging out with you, talking a little bit about you and learning more about the jazz society. It's been really great having you and sharing the Las Vegas jazz society with our listeners. Thank you again, also to our listeners for tuning in. And, of course, our friends here at km with V 91.5 jazz, and more especially our producer Wesley Knight and the whole team. And if you would like to hear more about jazz outreach initiative, the jazz Vegas orchestra and its nearly 30 performances this year, the both free the essentially Ellington regional Festival and the ticketed final concert benefiting UNLV jazz and many other youth music programs and ways you can participate. You can find all of this@jazzvegas.org our final song today will be back with Mont Montgomery from his 1974 self titled album, Montgomery reality. This is bump to bump for jazz outreach initiative. This is Donnie Thompson, make it a joyful Day. You