AUGUST 6, 2009 ISSUE
Blowing Rock Jazz Society’s 100th Concert August 9
The Noel Freidline Quintet to Perform
The Noel Freidline Quintet will play from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Meadowbrook Inn on Sunday, August 9, and this performance will be the Blowing Rock Jazz Society’s 100th concert.
“The whole group is outstanding,” said Fred Germann, founder and director of the Blowing Rock Jazz Society.
Concert tickets are $15 at the door for adults, $5 for students and free to jazz society members. Those who attend have the option of making advance dinner reservations at the inn and enjoying dinner and cocktails during the performance, Germann said.
Germann—who previously started a jazz society in Hilton Head, S.C.—founded the nonprofit Blowing Rock Jazz Society in 2000 after moving to the area and feeling it was a “letdown” that not much jazz was available locally.
“I had several people encourage me to start a jazz society,” Germann said. “I took some money out of my pocket, started a bank account, contacted some people [and] hired a band. From then on, we’ve had concerts every second Sunday of the month except in December.”
The concerts have been held in the Meadowbrook Inn in Blowing Rock since the society began and Germann asked the inn to host performances, he said.
“We’ve been doing a good job of preserving jazz,” Germann said. “We have about 100 paid members who love to come to our concerts.”
The $75 per year membership fee covers all the society’s concerts. “How can you beat that?,” Germann asked, adding that the society has brought in musicians from “pretty much every state.”
The society regularly gets calls from prominent musicians, such as a master studies piano player at the Lincoln Center, wanting to know if he can be fit into the schedule, Germann said.
“The word has spread [that] we have a very active and attentive audience…willing to accept the many flavors of jazz [that come] with different styles and intensity,” he said. “They appreciate the differences in the approach to the artform.”
The society’s goal is to keep the torch burning, to perpetuate the original American artform, to educate, to entertain, to teach, to appreciate and to try to convince young students that they’re very fortunate to be able to pursue jazz, he added.
“We have given [the] ASU jazz studies program generous contributions throughout the years to continue the program at ASU,” he said. “The money really…gets funneled back to the jazz program.”
The society plans to release a compilation cd of artists who performed at past concerts.
“[The artists] were anxious to participate and lend their talents, to know proceeds will be going to students at the program at App State,” he said, adding that he could not do his job without the support of an invaluable board of directors.
“If we as an adult jazz community don’t do something about preserving and encouraging jazz studies and performances, where will it go?” Germann said. “[Jazz] didn’t come across the ocean or from any other place—it belongs to us.”
The Noel Freidline Quintet came together in 1992 in Jacksonville, Fla., where they stayed for about nine years before traveling to Las Vegas, where they were the house band at the Bellagio Hotel for three years, said Noel Freidline.
“We’ve been in the Carolinas for six years now…based out of Charlotte,” Freidline said.
Band members include Freidline on piano and vocals, Renee Ebalaroza on vocals, Juan Rollan on saxophone, Tom Hildreth on bass and Ken Tackett on drums.
While in Las Vegas, the band met actress Julia Roberts during the filming of The Mexican.
“At the time, we got to know [Roberts and her husband] a bit,” Freidline said, adding that in 2003, Roberts’ husband flew the band to New York to perform as part of a surprise birthday party for her.
The Noel Freidline Quintet has performed about six times in Blowing Rock and has set attendance records for the jazz society during the past couple performances, Freidline said.
“We always look forward to coming and performing in Blowing Rock,” he added.
The band’s repertoire consists of both traditional jazz music and rearranged pieces from other artists, including Frank Sinatra, Betty Page, Bob Marley, Van Morrison, Jim Morrison and The Doors.
“We like to take songs people know but rearrange them,” Freidline said. “[Our music] is very accessible. You don’t have to like jazz to like what we do. Anyone who’s able to make it out [to the August 9 concert] will be pleased.”
The Meadowbrook Inn is located at 711 Main Street in Blowing Rock. For dinner reservations, call the inn prior to the day of the event at 828-295-4300.
For more information about The Noel Freidline Quintet, click to www.noelfreidline.com.
Want To Go?
Date: Sunday, August 9
Time: 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Location: Meadowbrook Inn, Blowing Rock
Cost: $15 adults/$5 students/free to jazz society members
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