The Little Giant of Jazz

 

NPS, Courtesy Heritage Landscapes (in Camp Hill Cultural Landscape Report)

Catherine Oliver

It’s a sultry afternoon at old Storer College, one of those summer-dog days where the air is so thick that sunshine itself seems liquid. When a breeze sweeps over the lonesome lawn, it’s an act of mercy, sweetened by the peal of saxophone and soft thump of drum drifting ghost-like from the former Anthony Hall. It is easy to imagine that the school’s most famous musical alumnus, jazz legend Don Redman (Class of 1920), has somehow returned from his eternal rest to serenade his alma mater.

In a manner of speaking, the spirit of Don Redman is back in Harpers Ferry this week: twenty-two teenage jazz musicians have ascended Camp Hill to hone their art in the week-long Don Redman Next Generation Jazz Scholars program. Initiated during the National Park Service centennial in 2016, students who successfully audition for the program spend a week studying jazz--and Redman’s impact upon it--under the tutelage of professional artists. The week concludes with a concert held alongside award-winning jazz musicians, which this year will be held June 30 on the Mather Training Center lawn at 6 o’clock in the evening.

“Redman’s impact on jazz cannot be overstated,” says Todd Bolton, Chief of Visitor Services at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. Redman, whose career spanned four decades, was known as the “Little Giant of Jazz.” Bolton calls him one of the most significant and influential artists in the genre, a groundbreaker whose touch has proven so vast it is almost inseparable from jazz itself. “Even people who have never heard of Don Redman are playing, influenced by Don Redman. His contribution was that significant, that important.”

The Jazz Scholars program is the latest addition to an annual event honoring Don Redman.

As the twenty-first century dawned in Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, park staff determined to explore more of the history associated with Storer College, the historically black school, shuttered since 1955, which had been one of the first properties in Harpers Ferry transferred to the park service. This effort coincided with the centennial of Redman’s birth in Piedmont, West Virginia, where locals who still remembered Redman were working to better memorialize their hometown prodigy. In the early years of the new century, park staff such as Bolton and the Piedmont community worked together to ensure Redman’s legacy would not be forgotten. A historical marker was installed near Redman’s hometown, while in Harpers Ferry, the jazz star was chosen as the first alumnus celebrated in the park’s new Storer College interpretation. 

Benny Powell

During the park’s summertime fireworks display in 2001, the first concert dedicated to Don Redman was held in Harpers Ferry. Benny Powell, a jazz legend in his own right, delivered an address recalling the late “Little Giant of Jazz,” with whom he had played decades earlier. The public reception to the event was so enthusiastic that Bolton and his colleagues sought to make the event an annual affair. Thus the Annual Don Redman Jazz Heritage Awards and Concert were born.

Since 2002, two awards have been given annually to jazz musicians who not only possess impressive careers, but who “truly give back,” explains Bolton. In the early years of the concert, Bolton and his colleagues successfully sought participants who had personally known and played with Redman, who died in 1964. This year’s recipients, Billy Hart and Bobby Watson, did not play with Redman, but are both renowned musicians who have demonstrated a sincere commitment to sharing their knowledge with future generations. Hart and Watson will perform at the June 30 concert, accompanied by the Howard Burns Quartet - the latter, Bolton says, has been an essential component of the Redman event since the beginning. The event is now also sponsored by the Jefferson County NAACP as well as the

Harpers Ferry Park Association.

Billy Hart in 1978 (Photo by Tom Marcello; left)
Bobby Watson (Photo by Lafiya Watson; right)

This year’s concert and award ceremony will kick off at 6 p.m. on the lawn of the former Storer College, now Mather Training Center. In the event of inclement weather, the concert will be held inside the Curtis Freewill Baptist Church.

“This is a great opportunity for the public to see big names perform,” Bolton says.