Every week until Oct. 12, the Jazz Fables Concert Series will present jazz ensembles from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at Bear's Place. This Thursday, Dave Stryker's Blue To The Bone kicked off the fall concerts with music from Stryker's Blue to the Bone CDs.
Jazz Fables director David Miller said the series started in Bloomington in the late 1970s and began with a small group of musicians playing jazz classics. The band originally played music by well-known jazz artists like Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington.
“The fables part came from a Charles Mingus tune, called 'Fables of Faubus,' and so in a lot of ways we’re playing classic jazz compositions while we’re telling jazz stories,” Miller said.
Jazz Fablesstarted the regular jazz gig at Bear's in 1989 with Luke Gillespie and Tom Walsh, who are both Jacobs School of Music professors, Miller said.
“When I started this band, all the players were students at IU and so that’s a part of a tradition that continued,” he said.
Miller said most of the jazz musicians that have come through Fables have gone on to become distinguished and world-renowned musicians, like Stryker.
“I viewed jazz fables as a chance to play the small group combo jazz classics and in a context that is outside of the school of music,” Miller said.
Dave Stryker is an adjunct professor of jazz guitar within Jacobs and has toured all over the world, including Europe and Japan. Stryker has recorded over 150 original compositions and has performed with jazz greats like Freddie Hubbard and Dizzy Gillespie.
At Bear's, Stryker performed with nine other musicians, many of whom also teach within the Jacobs school. Miller said undergrads can play at Bear's, and many seniors and graduate students from the jazz community have been known to come play a gig or two at the bar as well.
Chandra Craig, a waitress who has worked at Bear's for 16 years, said she is used to the familiar faces.
“These evenings are one of the most steady and busiest nights," Craig said.
Miller said that throughout the series Jazz Fables will host numerous tribute concerts to musicians like John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. On Aug. 31, Fables will host a tribute show to the late IU professor of jazz David Baker, showcasing his original compositions. The show is 21+ with $10 general admission and $8 admission for students, according to the Bear's Place website.
“All of the faculty are out playing with world-class people, so this is a rather strong series," he said. "Despite the fact that this is Bloomington Indiana, we’ve got all these professors who are capable of playing with anybody on the planet."
