Reese Moore
Freddy Cole plays Shannon Hall Saturday, June 20, 2015.
Singer and pianist Freddy Cole has been performing and recording music professionally for longer than his more famous brother was even alive. When your big bro is literally jazz royalty, you’re never going to escape his shadow completely. But that’s okay with Cole: In fact, one of his most popular tunes is a tribute to his older sibling, Nat King Cole, “I’m Not My Brother, I’m Me.” That’s also the title of his 1990 breakout album.
Over the past half century, Freddy Cole, headliner of this year’s Isthmus Jazz Festival, has forged a luminous career of his own, performing all over the world and recording more than 20 albums. While his sound bears an undeniable resemblance to Nat’s, critics have described Freddy’s voice as “warmer,” “smokier,” “raspier” and even “jazzier.” I’m not sure how you sound jazzier than Nat King Cole, but if it can be done, Freddy Cole is the guy to do it. His phrasing is informed by the likes of Sinatra and Billie Holliday. In short: He swings. When Cole takes the stage in the Union Theater’s Shannon Hall on Saturday, June 20, hundreds of listeners will be swinging along with him. Cole’s performance is the only paid, ticketed event of the festival; the rest of the performances are free and open to the public.
A career in music seemed inevitable for Cole. In addition to Freddy and Nat, brothers Ike and Eddie became musicians as well, all learning to play the piano from their mother, Paulina, at an early age. Jazz giants Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Lionel Hampton were occasional visitors to the Cole’s Chicago home. After playing Chitown clubs as a teen, Cole moved to New York in 1951 to study music at Juilliard, then earned his master’s from the New England Conservatory. He’s been gigging in top jazz clubs across the U.S., Europe and elsewhere ever since.
Opening for Cole will be the UW Jazz Orchestra, led by director of Jazz Studies Johannes Wallmann. The orchestra will start the show on its own, and then Cole will join them for a handful of numbers. After a short break, Cole will return for a set with his own quartet. Wallman says the Jazz Orchestra’s set will be tailored to Cole’s musical style.
“It’ll be a little more traditional than you would typically hear in a Jazz Orchestra set, where we usually do cutting-edge material,” Wallmann says. “We want to make this fit with the rest of the set, the kind of music Freddy Cole plays, so the audience can expect to hear swinging music, music that makes you tap your toes, some Thad Jone/Count Basie-style material.”
Wallmann will be doing double-duty at this year’s festival. In addition to leading the UW group, his own ensemble, the Sweet Minute Big Band, is on the bill for Friday evening on the Terrace, where they will perform in conjunction with the release of their new CD, Always Something.
For the rest of the festival, the action begins at 4:30 Friday afternoon on the Terrace with Susan Hofer & Friends, a combo of local musicians fronted by vocalist Hofer. They will be followed by the High School All Stars at 6:30; Wallman’s Sweet Minute Big Band at 8; and closing out the evening’s Terrace program, the Joel Paterson Trio featuring Chris Foreman. Madison audiences know former local Paterson well. Foreman is regarded by many as the best jazz organist in Chicago.
Meanwhile, those who prefer their jazz indoors can wander into the Rathskeller, where the Ben Ferris Octet will be offering classic big band sounds beginning at 6 p.m. At 8, the vibe takes a turn for the Latin with Edi Rey y Su Salsera, which will deliver a diverse set of salsa, merengue, cumbia, mambo and cha cha cha, led by saxophonist Rey. Friday’s Rathskeller program ends with the New Breed jam, Madison’s longstanding jazz jam — normally found at the Cardinal these days — hosted by some of the best jazz talent in town.
Saturday, the Terrace will be hopping all day and into the night. Black Star Drum Line, an outfit founded in 2008 by drummer Joey B. Banks that helps youth build character and leadership skills along with percussion chops, kicks off the festivities with a performance/workshop starting at 11am. Next up is the Edgewood Big Band at 1 p.m.
At 2:30, contemporary/bebop practitioners the Clay Lyons Quartet take the stage. Lyons, a saxophonist and Madison native, graduated from the Berklee College of Music in Boston and has toured the world, even opening for Wayne Shorter and performing with Ruben Blades. Lyons will be joined by two of his Berklee bandmates from the Boston area, Leandro Pellegrino, winner of the 2013 Montreux Jazz Festival Guitar Competition, and drummer Kazu Odagiri, along with local bass veteran Nick Moran.
Vocalist Alison Margaret brings her quintet to the stage at 4:30, followed at 6:30 by the Tony Castañeda Latin Jazz Superband, a souped-up version of Madison’s longtime favorite Latin jazz ensemble led by percussionist Castañeda. After Freddy Cole’s 8 p.m. headline act, the festival will close out with a set by the Neophonic Jazz Orchestra, a 24-piece throwback crew modeled after the ’60s-era Stan Kenton Orchestra, featuring several of Madison’s top jazz players.
The Isthmus Jazz Festival is now in its 27th year, but what sets this year’s festival apart from previous editions is the scope, expanding the festival beyond the Union Terrace. “We’re really excited to be able to expand the number of performance spaces we’re utilizing since the theater renovations are done,” says Alex Charland, a union staffer who coordinated the event. The biggest beneficiaries of that sprawl are festival-goers interested in the educational events. Organizers have partnered with the Madison Music Collective, which will present a variety of workshops, discussions and a film screening. Those events take place in the Fredric March Play Circle, beginning Friday at 7 p.m. with an advanced jazz improvisation workshop based on the teachings of George Russell, whose 1953 book, The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization for Improvisation, revolutionized the art of jazz soloing. At 9 p.m. the festival presents the documentary The Girls in the Band, followed by a Q&A session.
Saturday’s educational events include a workshop called Pop to Jazz, a strings class and stories and conversation with festival headliner Freddy Cole.
An international star whose brother was an even bigger international star, some of the best local jazz talent, a fancy-titled lecture about complicated jazz improvisational theory — no charge for (almost) any of it — what more could you ask for in a jazz festival?
