Jazz Society launches Seacoast Jazz Appreciation Project

When Terry MacDonald was growing up in a Boston suburb in the mid 1950s, he became a member of the Teenage Jazz Club. The group met once a month at Storyville in Boston, one of the city’s premier jazz clubs, owned by George Wein. They would meet on the last Friday afternoon of the month and listen to an exclusive performance by whichever jazz musician happened to be playing at the club that week. MacDonald and his fellow young jazz fans heard legends like Max Roach, Oscar Peterson, George Shearing and others. The musicians would also interact with their teenage listeners, giving them an informal education in jazz.

“All these wonderful performers who were the best performers in jazz in that era would come in and perform, and not just perform but they would engage in discussion with us,” MacDonald said. “It was a wonderful experience.”

Several members of the Teenage Jazz Club went on to become highly respected jazz artists in their own right, including Roger Kellaway, Steve Kuhn and Arnie Wise. Even those who didn’t launch lasting musical careers have remained loyal to the genre.

“I dare to say every one of us is a jazz fan to this day,” MacDonald said.

Now a board member of the Seacoast Jazz Society, MacDonald hopes to replicate his experience with a new program called the Seacoast Jazz Appreciation Project. The idea is for jazz fans to meet once a month and check out an informal jazz performance. Guests will also have a chance to converse with the musicians onstage, resulting in an event that is both fun and educational.

An initial pilot session of the project will take place at The Press Room in Portsmouth on Sunday, Jan. 3, from 4:30 to 5:45 p.m. If it generates enough interest, organizers will form a membership group and hold periodic events at The Press Room, with the goal of exposing new listeners to jazz and helping them understand how the music is conceived and expressed.

“The overarching objective is to expand the jazz audience,” MacDonald said.

Jazz hasn’t been a popular form of music since the big band era of the 1930s and ’40s. MacDonald pointed out that most young people typically don’t hear much jazz unless their parents or grandparents introduce them to the music.

“There aren’t many young people coming into the jazz tent,” he said. “Jazz is not the soundtrack of their life, it’s rock ’n’ roll.”

But the Seacoast Jazz Appreciation Project isn’t aimed exclusively at young people. Anyone interested in hearing the music and asking questions of the musicians is welcome to attend. MacDonald plans to keep the format of each event open, allowing the band leader to moderate the performance and discussion so that it is neither a formal concert nor an academic lecture.

The featured performer on Jan. 3 will be saxophonist, composer and educator Allan Chase and his quartet. Chase has appeared as a soloist on more than 35 recordings and has worked with a range of well-known jazz artists, including Rashied Ali, Gunther Schuller, Alan Dawson, Fred Hersch, Julius Hemphill, Matt Wilson, Dominique Eade and Lewis Nash.

Chase is also chair of the Ear Training Department at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He previously chaired the Department of Jazz Studies and Improvisation at the New England Conservatory. Ryan Parker, pianist with the Press Room Trio, has called Chase the best teacher he’s ever had in any subject.

The Allan Chase Quartet will offer a free show beginning at 4:30 p.m., and audience members will have a chance to chat with all four band members about their music, backgrounds, stage interactions and more.

The Press Room is at 77 Daniel St., Portsmouth, 603-431-5186.