Robert Reed’s “San Romano (Hip Strut)” explodes off the wall of the Jefferson School’s gallery. The bright colors and bold shapes are both abstract and representational—in one corner it’s all color and form, and in another corner there’s a chessboard, a gift from Reed’s son.
Reed attended the Jefferson School as a child in the age of segregation before finding success as an artist and academic. He taught at the Yale School of Art from 1969 until his death in 2014, but he maintained ties to the community throughout his life, keeping a studio here and sitting on the advisory board of Second Street Gallery. Now, his work is on display as part of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center’s “Charlottesville Collects African American Art” exhibit.
“This exhibition shows what African American artists have been thinking about, and how they’ve been approaching their work, over the last 70 years,” says JSAAHC Executive Director Andrea Douglas. The show’s 18 works provide a surprisingly in-depth survey, revealing what Douglas calls “a dramatic shift in America post-civil rights movement, when Black artists, and Americans in general, began to exist in a more racialized space.”
Reed’s work shows the tension at the heart of that evolution, as Black artists struggled to find success in the world of abstract art. Though the art establishment in the late 20th century sought abstract work, it also sidelined Black modernists because of their race. Meanwhile, these artists were repudiated by members of their own community for their emphasis on aesthetics rather than narrative.
“At the heart of this exhibition is the discourse of aesthetics versus race,” says Douglas. “It began with Alain Locke and W.E.B. Du Bois in the 1920s, James Porter in the ’40s, and then, in terms of the visual arts, it came to a head in 1971, with a show entitled ‘Contemporary African American Art’ at the Whitney Museum in New York City, and a second show in Houston, Texas, called ‘The DeLuxe Show.’” The early ’70s saw Black artists “articulating what it is that they understand to be their role and place in the larger American conversation,” says Douglas.
The Whitney mounted “Contemporary African American Art” in response to calls for more representation in museums from a group of artists called the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition. But as the exhibit went up, two points of contention emerged. The BECC were upset that the show had been scheduled for the spring, rather than the more prestigious winter months. The coalition also felt The Whitney hadn’t consulted enough experts in Black art about the selection of works. The BECC called for a boycott of the show, and 15 of the 75 artists on display withdrew their work.
Meanwhile, down in Texas, “The DeLuxe Show” was formed and presented in a remodeled movie theater as the first fully integrated show of its kind. The exhibition featured exclusively aesthetically based abstract art. The artists, regardless of their race, were presented on equal footing.
Standing next to Reed’s work at the Jefferson School is a sculptural work by renowned abstract artist Sam Gilliam, one of the artists who was in “The DeLuxe Show,” and one of the 15 who withdrew from the Whitney following the BECC boycott.
In the Charlottesville exhibition, his “Concrete (Tall #7)” creeps up on you, revealing its power incrementally. Gilliam uses concrete as his surface, silk screening the ink onto the overlapping, wafer-thin planes. It’s an interesting pairing—the obdurate weightiness of the concrete contrasting to the color, which at the upper part of the work, appears almost vaporous. Down below, three-dimensional drips and ridges of pigment add additional materiality, and impart visual heft. Gilliam uses copper wire to stitch together the planes, the copper is dull, so it doesn’t scream at you, but the chain-like stitches are so beautifully done, it’s clear they transcend their function to become a player within the composition. Jazz inspires Gilliam, and there’s a musical quality to the rhythm of the work with its varied passages of quiet and clamor.
Placing Gilliam’s piece next to Reed’s was “a really important gesture,” says Douglas. The two were friends and their approach to color and strong geometric forms is similar.
Reed isn’t the only artist featured in the show who attended the Jefferson School. Brothers Henderson “Bo” Walker and Frank Walker, and their friend Gerry Mitchell, were students there too, making the exhibition a reunion of sorts.
Moving around the room, two lithographs by Richard Hunt also stand out. Hunt is a prolific sculptor with over 125 public commissions to his name. His affinity for working in three dimensions is obvious here in the assemblage of bone-like objects, some flat, some rendered with volume, producing a striking sculptural effect. The earthy browns and grays punctuated by a pop of yellow strikes just the right note of stylish restraint.
Alison Saar’s “Black Bottom Stomp” draws on West African art and imagery. The title references Jelly Roll Morton’s 1925 jazz composition of the same name, so there’s a back and forth going on between West Africa and America. Saar’s images—the female figure, the moon, and also the title and the colors—present clues that resonate with the viewer.
If you’ve been to the Times Square subway station, you might recognize Jacob Lawrence’s “Transit I and II.” The sketches are the silkscreen models for a mosaic mural commissioned by the New York City Transit Authority for the busy station. “Transit I” depicts a subway car with riders holding onto poles. In “Transit II,” the subject shifts to a bus crowded with riders.
Lawrence uses a reduced palette of handsome earth tones that resemble collaged pieces of paper. With his jerky, jangly shapes and figures, he conveys the movement of train and bus and the press of humanity within them. He also adds recognizable touches—a briefcase, a long strand of sausages links, rosary beads for a potential subway proselytizer—to point out the range of transit patrons. With their flattened space and flat blocks of color, the compositions come across as abstract/figurative hybrids.
“We could write a very good history of photography between a Gordon Parks, a Carrie Mae Weems, and a Hank Willis Thomas, in terms of developing a conceptual idea about what photography has the potential to speak about,” says Douglas, referring to three photographs in the show. “Gordon Parks was sent to Alabama right after the bus boycott with the intention of documenting life in the South for Black people. He went to one of the poorest areas, met a sharecropper, Willie Causey and his family, and then documented that family in a series that appeared in Time magazine. Parks was approaching it from an aesthetic position, but he was also interested in describing Black poverty in the midst of the civil rights movement as a way of creating empathy for these people.”
The Weems’ photograph is from her “Kitchen Table Series,” which consists of 20 images of Weems, her romantic partner, her child, and her mother positioned around her kitchen table. Below an ever-present and distinctive overhead light fixture, the people in the photographs are caught in the ordinary moments of a woman’s life. Dating to 1990, the “Kitchen Table Series” established Weems’ reputation. The series is remarkable because it focused on a Black family at a time when so much contemporary art exhibited in museums and galleries did not. And while the subject of the series is a Black woman, the images also possess a universality that transcends race and gender.
Hank Willis Thomas’ haunting color photograph, “Strange Fruit,” depicts a muscular Black man wearing shorts and Nike sneakers in midair, slam dunking a basketball through a noose. “Looking at the image, you can see Thomas is thinking about the role of commodity and Black bodies,” says Douglas. “Embedded within the image also is the history of violence against Black bodies, the ways in which sports has become a road out of poverty, the importance of Nike as a brand and, therefore, the branding of that body with the racist, capitalist discourse that that can engender. …All of those things are there.”
The University of Virginia Art Museum, where Douglas was once a curator, used to mount a recurring show, “Charlottesville Collects,” which focused on local collections. Those collections overwhelmingly belonged to white people and featured white artists. So it was important for Douglas to present a show that shifted the emphasis to Black artists. “Charlottesville Collects African American Art” reveals a wealth of that art in this community.
Solidarity in song: Raising voices and raising awareness since 1973, Sweet Honey in the Rock is an African American a cappella group with a broad range of performance credits, from “Sesame Street” to Carnegie Hall. With mesmerizing harmonies and gifted lyrical flow, the ensemble addresses civil rights, justice, equality, and freedom through gospel, blues, and jazz. Sweet Honey celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a live streamed concert presented by the Charlottesville Jazz Society and Third Row Live. American Sign Language interpreter Barbara Hunt will accompany the singers.
Richmond/Brooklyn-based Citrus City Records has served as a platform for marginalized and lesser-heard voices from all corners of the scene since 2014. One of the tape label’s latest offerings comes from Ruth Good, the moniker for brothers Jonathan and Wes Parker. The duo teamed up with older brother Alan Parker (Spacebomb) for Haunt, which brims with grit and nuance. With the elder Parker on lead guitar and pedal steel, Jacob Ungerleider rounds out the arrangement on keys, while Dr. Dog’s Eric Slick takes the helm on drums. Each member recorded remotely from home in April, and the final product was mixed by Adrian Olsen at Montrose Recording and mastered by Ryan Schwabe. Recalling elements of surf rock, harmonies dance around guitar and piano lines across the EP’s four tracks—which all clock in under four minutes—making Haunt a breath of fresh air that packs a punch. What’s more, 100 percent of the album’s digital sales are donated to Richmond Mutual Aid in support of disaster relief and COVID-19 resources (released September 5).
Jana Horn
Optimism, Self-released
Jana Horn has been a stalwart on the Austin music scene for years, touring with bands like Knife in the Water and Reservations. This fall marks a period of seminal change for Horn: She’s now spending a good chunk of time in Charlottesville, pursuing her MFA in fiction at the University of Virginia. Concurrently, she’s released her debut solo album,Optimism, which has been in the works since 2015. Recorded at Hen House Recording in Texas, the disc features Ian Phillips (drums) and her fellow Knife in the Water bandmates Aaron Blount (guitar) and Vince Delgado (bass). A quiet, meditative listen, Optimism is a folk exaltation that makes room for Horn’s ruminations to breathe and unfurl (released September 18).
Rob Cheatham and Co.
Sons and Daughters, Self-released
Sons and Daughters is Rob Cheatham’s third record in four years—and perhaps his most ambitious offering to date. His legacy in the commonwealth can be traced back to his time growing up in Richmond. After a stint in Philadelphia, Cheatham settled in Charlottesville, where he’s played in numerous bands throughout the years (The Nice Jenkins, Gunchux, Borrowed Beams of Light). Chock-full of the alt-country gusto listeners have come to expect from Cheatham, Sons and Daughters goes a step further, drawing on the touchstones of rock ‘n’ roll for a more robust sound. Amy Bowden’s violin provides a stirring through-line, while a horn section complete with trumpet (Ben Pryse), saxophone (Noah Galbreath), and trombone (Evan Amoroso) offers a welcome warmth. Across the album’s eight tracks, Cheatham reflects on our current cultural and sociopolitical climate, begging the question: What world are we leaving behind for our sons and daughters? (released March 20).
Pale Blue Dot
Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, Rockfish Music
Tapping into an array of musical influences from folk and prog-rock to jazz, Charlottesville-based Pale Blue Dot crafts music that’s smart and self-aware, prone to questioning the world and everything’s place within it. Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species is a steady continuation of the group’s affinity for the existential. Songs like “Evolution Blues” and “Waiting for Signs” find the band’s feet planted squarely on the ground while challenging our self-imposed belief systems (released September 4).
Charlottesville resident Roland Wiggins is one of the greatest jazz theoreticians of our time. And while he's shared his knowledge with some of the most famous names in jazz (John Coltrane, Yusef Lateef, to name just a couple), a spirit of self-expression and generosity is what has come to define his storied career. Photo by Amy and Jackson Smith
Roland Wiggins taught his first music lesson when he was in elementaryschool. He was about 10 years old, and his music teacher, Helen Derrick, had written a series of notes and chord intervals on the chalkboard. As the lesson progressed, Wiggins noticed that Derrick had made a mistake.
“Excuse me, Ms. Derrick. You’ve made an error,” the boy said from his desk. “What you told us just doesn’t work, really, musically.”
Derrick replied, “Now, wait a minute. I’m going to check all my theories and check all the books, and if I come back and you’re right, I’ll bring you an ice cream cone.”
Half-reclining on a formal sofa in his Charlottesville living room (which also doubles as his practice studio, with an upright piano and clavinova in one corner), Wiggins, now 87, interlocks his fingers behind his head and looks up toward the ceiling as he remembers the scene. “Ms. Derrick was going to be a better music teacher than most. I wasn’t being mean, that’s just what I felt,” he says, then laughs quietly before ending the story.
Next music class, he says, eyes smiling, everyone got a vanilla ice cream cone.
Wiggins still loves vanilla ice cream best, and he’s built his love for music, and music education, into an astonishing career that’s included teaching everyone from Philadelphia public school students to John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. A resident of Charlottesville since 1989, Wiggins is one of the foremost music theorists and logicians of our time.
His approach to music and music theory, which he calls the “atonal method,” or, more casually, “the Wiggins,” allows musicians to better express themselves by breaking the rules of Western tonal music. It’s about, among many other things, avoiding clichés, infusing original compositions with more individuality, or giving a singular voice to a standard piece. It’s about communicating honestly.
A young Roland Wiggins (center) poses with his mother, older sister, and older brother. Wiggins, who grew up in Ocean City, New Jersey, was a musical prodigy by age 10. In addition to his many accomplishments, he is one of just a few people authorized to teach the Schillinger System of Musical Composition, a method based on mathematics and encompassing theories of rhythm, harmony, melody, counterpoint, form, and semantics (emotional meaning). Photo courtesy of Roland Wiggins
By the time Wiggins corrected his music teacher’s work, he’d already been playing and studying piano for a few years.
Wiggins says that his mother “played church music very well,” and practiced regularly on the Wiggins’ family piano. It wasn’t a great piano, he recalls—it was missing a few keys, and some of the others didn’t make a sound. But this imperfect instrument may actually have enhanced Wiggins’ innate musical abilities.
One day, Wiggins’ mother told him he’d be playing music at church the following Sunday. “Well, Mom, I would probably make a lot of mistakes,” he said to her, looking over at the flawed piano.
A stern glance from Wiggins’ father said that Wiggins would indeed play music at church the following Sunday. “So what I did was, to learn the pitches that were missing, and put them here,” says Wiggins, pointing to his ear. He played that Sunday, and kept practicing, “And there came a time when the whole keyboard became friends rather than enemies, or matters of ignorance.”
Throughout junior high and high school, he took private lessons as well as classes at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music, including some from highly regarded classical composer Vincent Persichetti. Wiggins then enrolled in Combs College of Music in Philadelphia, where, about a week or so into classes, he was invited to join the faculty. Over the course of eight years, Wiggins attended Combs part-time, earning undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees while simultaneously teaching music in Philadelphia public schools.
Wiggins then left Philadelphia for New York, where he studied composition and advanced chord theory with Henry Cowell, regarded by many as one of the most innovative composers in 20th century American music. (Cowell is perhaps best known for his development and use of “tone clusters,” in which a pianist plays multiple adjacent keys on the keyboard at once, often with the forearm, to achieve a certain sonorous sound.)
Somewhere in there, he served in the U.S. Air Force and played in a band with famed jazz and R&B trumpeter Donald Byrd (Wiggins says he taught Byrd about embellishments, musical flourishes on a melody or harmony in the form of added notes).
During his stint in the military, Wiggins, seen here at the piano, played in an Air Force band. Among his many bandmates was famed jazz and R&B trumpeter and vocalist Donald Byrd. Photo courtesy of Roland Wiggins
In a distinguished and varied career, Wiggins has been director of the Center for the Study of Aesthetics in Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (1971-1973); a music teacher and choral director for Amherst Regional Junior High School (1976-1979); and an associate professor of music at Hampshire College in Amherst. He later chaired the Luther P. Jackson House for African American Studies at the University of Virginia, and taught a few classes in UVA’s music department while he was at it.
At the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, he conducted grant-funded research into advancements in electronic music production and helped create the Sound to Score translator device, which used computerized analyses of world famous jazz musicians to teach music.
And there were opportunities he did not take: In 1971, for instance, Harvard psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce requested that Wiggins interview for the position of director of the Urban Studies Center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, a post that came with a full professorship. The committee felt Wiggins’ approach to digital music education could “serve as a model in numerous institutional programs,” Pierce wrote, adding, “Your own ability as a jazz and classical musician was mentioned to me by Mr. Quincy Jones, a musician of international stature, who praised your handling of the philosophical, educational and research components of the Institute of Black American Music.”
Yes, that Quincy Jones, producer to Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, and Aretha Franklin, among others. Wiggins got to know him through Jesse Jackson, who tapped Wiggins to serve as a charter member on the board of directors for his Operation P.U.S.H. (People United to Save Humanity). For the record, “Q” wanted to study music with Wiggins, too, but Wiggins’ queue of students was already full.
Wiggins turned down the Harvard interview. It didn’t pay as much as UMass Amherst, and by that time he had a family—his wife, Muriel, and their three daughters—to consider. But he was proud to be asked, and keeps the letter in a plastic sleeve inside a binder alongside some of his most prized photographs and sheet music.
Wiggins’ list of accomplishments goes on and on, and might fill the allotted word count for this story. But in talking with Wiggins for even a few minutes, it’s clear that while he’s accomplished quite a bit in his life—musically, academically, culturally—he’s not doing it for the accolades.
“I’ve got awards and stuff, that I don’t hang on the wall,” he says. His walls are instead full of large-scale abstract paintings by one of his Air Force buddies; a portrait of his three daughters, Rosalyn, Susan, and Carol; a few family photos; and other items close to his heart. Atop his piano are family photographs, lamps, cassette tapes, and small clocks, rather than trophies and citations. When Wiggins talks about what he’s accomplished, he speaks not of his awards, but his students.
“I’ve had a lot of students. Either directly, or indirectly,” he says, smiling. Some of them just happen to be some of the greatest and most influential jazz musicians of all time. Yusef Lateef. Billy Taylor. Archie Shepp via Jimmy Owens. John Coltrane, unhappy with what he’d come up with after the monumental success of both Giant Steps (1960) and A Love Supreme (1965), called Wiggins for guidance.
“I said, ‘first of all, John, give yourself credit for the mastery that you’ve already developed and the contributions you’ve made,’” Wiggins says. Their phone call was cut short, but another of Wiggins’ students, Charlottesville-based musician and restaurateur Jay Pun, says it’s generally understood that that Coltrane-Wiggins phone call influenced much of what Coltrane did on Interstellar Space, recorded in 1967 (the year Coltrane died) and released in 1974.
Wiggins (right) and legendary pop music producer Quincy Jones embrace at a fundraiser for Tandem Friends School in the mid-1990s. Wiggins and Jones met in the 1970s, via Jesse Jackson’s Operation P.U.S.H. (People United to Save Humanity). At the time, Wiggins was running a program at the University of Massachusetts focused on recruiting notable African Americans to advanced degree programs, and “Q” expressed interest in enrolling. Photo courtesy of Roland Wiggins
Charlottesville-based guitarist Jamal Millner saw Wiggins’ influence on these stars firsthand. Millner, perhaps best known as a member of the Corey Harris-led blues band 5×5, studied music at UVA in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was a great era for jazz in Charlottesville, he says, and a lot of jazz greats came to town to play at Old Cabell Hall. Millner, who was playing music professionally even before going to college, would sometimes loiter backstage and listen to the stars discuss technique and theory. Wiggins was usually there, too.
During one show, legendary jazz drummer Max Roach gave Wiggins a shoutout from the stage, and it nearly blew Millner’s mind. “The highest level of jazz musicians were always giving Dr. Wiggins his props,” he says.
So, what exactly are they giving him props for?
Wiggins giggles when he explains what he’s been working on in his decades-long music theory career. “I keep laughing and giggling,” he says, “because I’ve developed a system of atonality. That means, it purposely breaks all the rules of Western tonal music.” (Most music in Western cultures is tonal.)
He gets up from the sofa and goes over to the clavinova (a digital piano) to demonstrate. His system has to do with, among many other things, added tone systems; embellishments; sets of chords and their behaviors; how the end of one musical entity (a chord, or a rhythm, for instance), is immediately or simultaneously the beginning of another one. It’s hard to explain in words, but easy to hear. Wiggins gets on the clavinova and demonstrates how his system of atonality can expand the emotional and intellectual capacity of a composition.
“So, if you’re angry at, say, some of the racism, or some of the more offensive mechanisms that are still around in society, you can’t express that musically and be truthful” when you’re playing something upbeat and proper, he says as he plays a measure. “But if you do the Wiggins atonality,” he says, his fingers floating over the keys, playing that same measure in a different voice, one with more tones, more notes, more variation, and as a result, more feeling. “It’s not easy to sing, but I’m expressing something real, some rage, honestly,” he says.
It’s a way to get to know someone. “Have you heard this one?,” Wiggins asks before launching into “What A Wonderful World,” Wiggins-style. Of course I have; it’s part of the Great American Songbook. But I haven’t heard it like this. Not from the perspective of a black man born in Ocean City, New Jersey, during the Great Depression, who was a musical prodigy by age 10. Who, growing up in a segregated United States, was not allowed to swim in the local public pool except on Fridays, just before it was cleaned for the week.
I haven’t heard “What A Wonderful World” from the perspective of someone whose family was only allowed to buy a home near the railroad tracks. Not from the perspective of a brilliant mind who was told by the dean of UMass that he was being hired “because he was black, and a scholar,” not because he was a scholar who was also black (Wiggins asked him to reverse that statement).
Wiggins (left) with jazz icon Dizzy Gillespie (right). Photo courtesy of Roland Wiggins
Next, he plays Thelonious Monk and, with a wry smile on his face, says that since Monk’s not here to tell him otherwise, “let’s help ourselves” to “‘Round Midnight.” He adds “the Wiggins” to Monk, builds upon his friend’s composition, makes it his own.
He’s had two surgeries on his hands, he tells me as he leaves Monk behind, those very hands still dancing over the black and white keys. But at the time, he’d fallen in love with a piece full of tenths, a piece that required both hands to play. “Ah, Chopin!” he declares. “Takes me back to Combs College! Cadence. Deceptive. All running up and down the keyboard. They’re instrumental forms, and not every musician uses the same ones others do,” he explains.
The Wiggins system is about individual, truthful expression and communication through music. It’s what he aims to share with his students, so that they in turn may share it with their own students and listeners.
It’s an approach to teaching, playing, and writing music that has changed the work, and the lives, of a number of local musicians who’ve worked closely with Wiggins over the years.
I’ll say this about Charlottesville,” says Millner. “There are a lot of great musicians around. But Dr. Wiggins? He’s a person that, for most folks, only exists in theory. But he’s here. Talented, intelligent, and a very nice guy. In all the ways he’s great at music, he’s great as a person.”
For Millner, as well as other area musicians like Morwenna Lasko and her husband and collaborator Jay Pun, living in such close proximity to Wiggins has allowed them to mine the depths of the theorist’s brilliant mind and big heart in ways that folks like John Coltrane simply could not.
Pun first heard of Wiggins through his friend and musical mentor LeRoi Moore, saxophonist and founding member of Dave Matthews Band, who arranged music around Matthews’ song skeletons. Every time Pun visited Moore’s farm outside of town, the two would have the same conversation.
“Do you know Wiggins?,” Moore would ask.
“No, who’s that?,” Pun would say.
“He’s a music theorist, and he will blow your mind!”
“Whatever, Roi,” Pun would reply. Pun graduated from Berklee College of Music, so what more could another music theorist have to teach him?
When Moore died of pneumonia after being seriously injured in an ATV accident in 2008, Wiggins played at his funeral. But still, Pun had his doubts.
After a chance meeting while waiting in line to see Barack Obama at the Sprint Pavilion in 2011, Pun gave Wiggins a call: He was a friend of LeRoi’s, and he wanted to take a lesson. But before Wiggins would accept him as a student, Pun had to pass a test.
“What’s in a C diminished chord?” Wiggins asked.
“C, E flat, G flat, B double flat,” said Pun.
“Is that all?” Wiggins inquired.
Pun paused, tentatively offered up a few more options, and Wiggins told him to call back when he knew for sure. His pride bruised, Pun decided it wasn’t worth it. And yet, he had to know what Wiggins knew about the C diminished chord, that he didn’t.
Pun did his research, called Wiggins back the following day with a better answer: C, E flat, G flat, and B double flat are the consonant tones, but each chord has even more dissonant notes, like ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths. That’s what Wiggins wanted to hear, and so they set up a lesson: One hour, for $50. That hour turned into three, almost four. Then it turned in to another lesson, and another.
Once Pun started learning “this note goes with that note because of this,” and “this note combined with those note sounds like this because of this,” the number of people buying his records and attending his live shows mattered less and less to him. Under Wiggins’ tutelage, Pun says that for him, music transformed into a world worth exploring, rather than just a product to promote.
Roland Wiggins “is a one-in-a-lifetime teacher, and friend,” says Morwenna Lasko, a Charlottesville-based musician who has taken lessons from Wiggins since spring 2013. Over the years, their talks on music and music theory have led to conversations about life and family, a driving force in both their lives. “The Western tonal system of music will only take you so far, as far as expressing things. And that’s why Dr. Wiggins is a genius in certain aspects, because he’s tried to undo it,” says Lasko. Photo by Amy and Jackson Smith
Lasko took her first lesson with Wiggins in spring 2013, a birthday gift from Pun. Lasko started playing violin at age 3, after seeing Itzhak Perlman play on “Sesame Street.” Her musical gifts were evident from the start—she’d often retreat to her room to figure out a “Masterpiece Theater” theme—and she knew early on that music is how she best expresses herself, how she best relates to people.
Lasko is classically trained and highly skilled (she can play Paganini caprices, considered “the ultimate” in technical accomplishment), but she was nervous for her first Wiggins lesson. She arrived early and sat in her car in the driveway to compose herself before ringing the bell.
Once she was inside, though, at the piano with Wiggins, her nerves mostly subsided. She’d gained not just a teacher, but a friend, and the lessons were “magic.” They talked theory and played pieces like Billy Taylor’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free,” and Thad Jones’ “A Child Is Born” to get to know one another. As with Pun, Lasko’s one-hour lessons were almost always longer, but Wiggins never charged more than the $50.
Early on in their lessons, Lasko and Wiggins noticed that deer would often come up to the French doors in the living room and listen in on what they were doing on violin and piano, respectively. Lasko’s convinced it’s the late, great jazz artists stopping by to hear what they’re doing, to continue learning from Wiggins.
Wiggins’ theories and methods “[give] you so much more juicy vocabulary to use” when expressing oneself through music, she says.
He’s also helped her to realize her own musical tendencies and clichés. Musicians get comfortable with what they know, says Lasko, and they’ll slip back into the same chord progressions or familiar melodies. But Wiggins helped her see that identifying and recognizing that comfort zone, and then stepping outside of it, is where a musician can grow. While recording The Hollow, her latest release with Pun as MoJa, Lasko wrote her violin solos, listened to them, decided “that sounds so Morwenna,” and then re-wrote them to be almost the opposite of what they were…and they’re now some of her favorite solos.
Many musicians, once they reach a certain point of virtuosity, think there’s nothing more to learn, says Lasko. But there’s always something to discover, and Wiggins leads by example. While recovering from a hip surgery in a rehabilitation facility, Lasko and Pun brought Wiggins a keyboard so that he could play music for his fellow patients (often accompanied by his wife singing), and so that he could work late into the night on his theories.
During their lessons, Lasko and Wiggins usually play violin and piano, respectively. But Wiggins often has Lasko hop on the piano bench with him to do a one-finger melody exercise. Photo by Amy and Jackson Smith
After Berklee, Lasko wondered what she would practice that would continue to inspire her. The answer, it turns out, is music theory, and Wiggins’ atonal method in particular. “That language is so vast and broad,” she says. “The more you know of it, the more you can say, the more you can communicate with others. The more I build my language of music theory, the more powerful I feel. The Western tonal system of music will only take you so far, as far as expressing things. And that’s why Dr. Wiggins is a genius in certain aspects, because he’s tried to undo it.”
“I have notebooks full of stuff that I will literally be digesting for my entire life,” says Lasko. “It’s almost like life is too short, like you need 10 lives, or 25, to really learn all there is to learn.”
But, says Wiggins, Lasko’s doing a pretty fantastic job. “I just adore her. If I were to die tomorrow morning, the person that would know so much of what I’ve taught to do, would be Morwenna.”
And that’s a very good thing: Lasko teaches private lessons to students of all ages here in Charlottesville, sharing some of that Wiggins knowledge with a whole new generation of musicians.
This Saturday night, Wiggins will give a somewhat rare concert during A Night of Black Innovation in Music at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.
In a Facebook post about the show, Wiggins wrote, “The opportunity to help preserve and extend the life of Afro-American arts, especially music, is tremendously exciting for me.” He’ll perform alongside a slew of local black artists, including pianist and composer Ivan Orr, singer Yolonda Coles Jones, neo-soul artist Nathaniel Star, and others. Some of his beloved students—including Lasko, Pun, and Millner—will perform as well.
Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit the future Eko Ise performance, music theory, and education program at the Jefferson School, something that, of course, is close to Wiggins’ heart.
Lasko and Pun say Wiggins is always talking about ways to get a music theory program, especially one geared toward black children, started here in town. Because music is a language to be used for self-expression, Wiggins is particularly committed to getting that idea into the minds of black children, perhaps, he says, because that was his own experience. Music, and music theory, not only gave him opportunities, it gave him a way to express himself fully, in a world that was, and often still is, not kind to black self expression.
When I ask Wiggins what he hopes his legacy will be, he gets up from the couch for what must be the tenth time in two hours, and walks to the stand up piano. He takes a black plastic cassette player from the top and rifles through a stack of tapes. This one’s Billy Taylor’s, he says, and sets it aside. The next one is Thelonious Monk, working through a piece for him. He sets that one aside, too. The third tape in the stack is the one he’s after, the one with a pink label.
Wiggins sits at the clavinova in his Charlottesville living room. On the wall is a painting by one of his Air Force buddies. Photo by Amy and Jackson Smith
Wiggins returns to the couch, sets the cassette player on the table, pops in the tape, and rewinds it a bit. When he presses play, it’s not Taylor, or Monk, or Coltrane, or Lateef that comes out of the speaker. It’s the children’s choir he directed in Amherst in the 1970s, singing a Billboard No. 1 hit, the “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” medley from The 5th Dimension.
“Harmony and understanding,/ Sympathy and trust abounding, / No more falsehoods or derisions,” sing the hundred or so voices with nothing but piano accompaniment.
The dozens of children sing with gusto, with soul. Wiggins listens thoughtfully, appreciating the passion with which they sing.
When the song ends, the crowd erupts in applause, and Wiggins lets it play out before pausing the cassette. “The applause was so long. I’ve never had applause, for anything, as long as [I did for] those kids, from their parents, and their community. I just…I felt very good about that,” he says, nodding his head.
He’s influenced some of the greatest jazz musicians to ever play. And yet, it always comes back to children, to those who might choose music for their own journeys, if only they’re given the chance.
Wiggins hopes that those who’ve learned from him “don’t become stingy with the subject matter that I’ve developed. That they want to share. I would like to see that people use their creativity, even in sharing. That’s a generosity that I would like to leave here,” he says, bringing it back to his own first lesson in music, one that’s led him down a lifelong path of musical discovery and truthful self-expression.
If you give someone money to buy some ice cream, “You don’t tell them chocolate, or cherry. You let them choose for themselves.”
Roland Wiggins will give a somewhat rare concert appearance during A Night of Black Innovation in Music at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center this Saturday, September 21. The event, which highlights the importance of black music and honors the contributions black musicians have made to American culture, will also include performances by Jamal Millner, Ivan Orr, Yolonda Coles Jones, and many others, including Wiggins’ longtime students and friends Morwenna Lasko and Jay Pun.
The Hard Modes' goal, says Greg Weaver (center), is to get jazzheads and gamers into the same room to appreciate something together. Photo by Tristan Williams
Greg Weaver has been playing video games since…well, since he can remember. Growing up, his family had an Atari system and his cousin had a classic Nintendo NES. One particularly exciting Christmas, the family got a Super Nintendo system.
The Weaver siblings spent hours playing on the consoles, immersed in the worlds contained therein, but when their dad put on Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, they’d boogie down. Weaver was particularly into the songs with heavy sax, and when he was about 6 years old, he started begging his parents for a saxophone of his own.
By the time Weaver got his wish (and a PlayStation), he was in sixth grade and more than ready for a wind instrument—all that blowing on video game cartridges to fix the glitches just might have helped increase his lung capacity (emphasis on the “might”), he says.
About two decades later, Weaver still plays video games and saxophone, and he combines his love for the two in The Hard Modes, a jazz ensemble that plays original arrangements of video game music and counts American jazz icons Charles Mingus and Ornette Coleman, as well as Japanese video game composers Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu, among its influences.
The Hard Modes will play C’ville Coffee Saturday night, with Weaver on tenor and soprano saxophones, Brandon Walsh on trumpet, Trevor Williams on vibes, André La Velle on bass, Nick Berkin on keys, and Pat Hayes on drums.
Weaver, who arranges most of The Hard Modes’ pieces, has been playing video game music himself for years now. In middle school, he’d pluck out the “Zelda: Ocarina of Time” theme on his parents’ stand-up piano; other times, he and friends would take midi files of their favorite game music and feed them into a computer program that would print out corresponding sheet music, allowing the friends to play their favorite game tunes before jazz band practice started.
But it wasn’t until Weaver’s fourth-year music recital at UVA that the jazz musician, who studied with John D’earth and Jeff Decker, arranged some of his favorite game music for saxophone, combining two tunes—“Proto Man” and “Gemini Man” from Mega Man 3—for the program.
Weaver guesses that when most people hear the phrase “video game music,” they think about synthesizer bleeps and bloops, the earworm melodies from 8-bit games like Super Mario Brothers and Tetris that stick in your head for hours. But video game music has come a long way, and game music composers have fewer limitations than they did, says Weaver. Some of the soundtracks have been so popular, they’ve been released as albums.
In recent years, video game music has made its way into orchestra repertoires—like The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses tour, which made a stop in town at John Paul Jones Arena in April 2016. And rock bands, such as heavy metal instrumental group Powerglove (named for the Nintendo controller accessory), play versions of video game music, too.
It only makes sense for a jazz group to do it, though video game music hasn’t caught on as quickly in the jazz world, says Weaver. “Throughout time, jazz has taken the popular music of the era and adapted it” into the language of jazz, he says, and when you think about how much time people spend playing video games, this music is some of the most popular stuff out there. A few groups have done it, but it often comes out sounding like lounge or elevator music, says Weaver.
“It’s easy to take a piece of video game music, arrange it, and make it really cheesy,” he says, in part because video game music “is kind of humorous” to begin with. It’s more difficult to strike a balance between a thoughtful arrangement that honors both the spirit of jazz and the playfulness of the original composition. The Hard Modes are up to the challenge.
Weaver focuses on “adapting that rich, harmonic, rhythmic, melodic language that jazz has, to these video game tunes,” and makes very deliberate choices about which pieces the group will adapt and play. On Saturday, they’ll play selections from the Game Boy classic Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening; critically acclaimed modern game Undertale; some from Chrono Cross, one of the earliest games to gain recognition for its soundtrack (composed by Mitsuda, who claims classical, jazz, and even Celtic influence on his music); and an arrangement of a tune from Secret of Mana nestled within one from Secret of Evermore (Walsh arranged this one).
The goal, says Weaver, is to get jazzheads and gamers into the same room to appreciate something together. The Hard Modes want to put on a good show, one that proves the strength of video game music composition to the jazz fans while opening up the world of jazz music to gamers, challenging any preconceived notion either group has of the other’s art. “There’s such a connection between the two; hopefully we can blur the lines a little bit,” says Weaver.
Weaver feels that connection most strongly during the improvisational moments of The Hard Modes’ performances. In jazz improv, “you’re keeping the melody in mind, using it as an influence on what you’re playing. It may not be obvious, but it’s in the back of your mind. And with these video game tunes, you get to put your own emotions and memories into what you’re playing when you improvise,” like the memory of playing Nintendo 64 with your best friend, or recalling the excitement of unwrapping a Super Nintendo on Christmas morning. “Expanding upon those melodies that we already love,” says Weaver, “that’s really fun.”
The Hard Modes strike a balance between serious jazz and less-serious video game music on February 23 at C’ville Coffee.
The Charlie Ballantine Trio plays UVA's Brooks Hall this Sunday, January 27. Publicity photo
Charlottesville Jazz Society kicks off its concert season with guitarist Charlie Ballantine and his trio. Ballantine’s music pays homage to his childhood in the Midwest through a unique melding of folk and jazz. Among his influences are some of the greatest jazz, rock, and pop musicians of the ’60s and ’70s, and his latest release, Life Is Brief: The Music of Bob Dylan, showcases his devotion to American music.
Sunday, January 27. $10-20, 7pm. Brooks Hall, UVA. 249-6191.
The David Dominique Ensemble will perform music from its new release, Mask, on Sunday at UVA's Brooks Hall. Photo by Joey Wharton
To understand the music of composer David Dominique, shuffle a playlist that features Charles Mingus, Sun Ra Arkestra, and Igor Stravinsky, then add in a few tracks from Sonic Youth. Known for his rhythmically complex and emotionally provocative avant-garde compositions, the Richmond-based William & Mary professor is so versatile that his work ranges from writing for a jazz octet to performing at Coachella, plus scoring the experimental theater work Starcrosser’s Cut, “a fictional, dreamlike reconstruction of the police interview after the arrest of infamous NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak.” The David Dominique Ensemble will perform music from its new release, Mask.
Sunday, November 11. $20-25, 7pm. Brooks Hall, UVA. 249-6191.
The Rainey Day Quartet sets up for an evening of groovy summer jazz at The Garage on Friday. Photo by Martyn Kyle.
If you’ve been on the Downtown Mall this summer, you’ve likely seen four young musicians set up in front of Kilwin’s, beside a white board that reads “Help Us Pay For College” propped in a guitar case with a shallow sea of coins and crumpled bills pooling at its base.
The Rainey Day Quartet formed just over a month ago, but the band is already turning heads and swiveling hips with its approach to jazz music.
Home on summer break from Carnegie Mellon University, Albemarle High School graduate Sam Rainey was eager to busk on the mall and make a few bucks while doing what he loves—playing jazz. But jazz is more fun with a band, so he rang up Jack Treece, an AHS rising senior, to join him on upright bass (the backbone of a jazz quartet), and recent AHS graduate Ben Eisenberg to round out the rhythm section on drums. Rainey tapped another AHS jazz band alumnus and current James Madison University student, saxophonist Anthony Hoang, as the quartet’s soloist.
It’s a slightly unusual combination, explains Rainey. Typically, jazz quartets have piano rather than guitar, but pianos aren’t exactly portable (even keyboards are difficult to lug around and set up properly). Plus, guitar allows the band to explore a funkier, groovier sound that appeals to the quartet.
And also, evidently, to its listeners—the group draws a crowd during its noontime and Saturday evening pop-up performances, compelling passersby to stop and listen, tap a toe or even shimmy, swirl and twirl to the beat—summer heat be damned.
The four musicians, who play The Garage Friday night, are drawn to jazz because of its versatility, for the creative freedom it offers and encourages. “You don’t have to play exactly what’s on the page,” says Treece. “It can be more expressive within the band, because it’s meant to be more interpretive than exact.”
With that in mind, The Rainey Day Quartet is not averse to infusing swing, bop, bossa nova and funk elements into its music, and it’s equally willing to take a groove-heavy, see-where-it-goes approach to pop classics and current radio hits.
In a single set, RDQ might play jazz standards out of The Real Book, Erroll Garner’s classic “Misty” modernized with a hip-hop funk groove, a jazzy rendition of Jason Mraz’s pop track “I’m Yours” and a rendition of The Beatles’ “Yesterday.”
“Once we get a crowd, we like to give them something they’ve heard on the radio, something modern they can stop and dance to,” says Treece.
No matter what they play, it’s an adventure. Because jazz doesn’t demand musicians to play “exactly by the book,” says Hoang, the quartet is free to change key, tempo or flavor—even switch songs halfway through if they want to.
That freedom and versatility hinges on the quartet’s ability not just to play together, but actively listen to one another as they play. It’s a skill they say they learned from Albemarle High School band director Greg Thomas.
“A big thing for us is how we communicate through a conversation of improvisation,” says Eisenberg. That conversation is spoken in a secret language that only the band understands—a unique combination of eye contact, body language and music cues. For example, if the band is playing at medium tempo, Rainey can move it into double time on guitar, prompting Eisenberg to match that tempo on drums so that Treece can lay into a heavier groove on bass, paving the way for Hoang to divert his sax solos down an untrodden path.
This is what makes jazz the ultimate creative exercise, says Hoang to sounds of agreement from his band members.
And people seem to like it, adds Rainey. At one point during a recent Saturday evening performance, a crowd of at least 20 people gathered to listen to the band. Most of them were dancing, laughing and smiling as they moved, says Rainey. These are the moments that he savors, seeing firsthand how the music touches its listeners. “It feels great to make a small difference in their day,” he says.
Brendan Wolfe is the managing editor for the Encyclopedia Virginia. His first book, Finding Bix: The Life and Afterlife of a Jazz Legend, hits stores on May 15. Courtesy of the subject
If you have never heard of Bix Beiderbecke, the unlikely jazz legend from a Midwestern, German-American family, listen to his tunes on YouTube or Spotify and you’ll want to know more. Dig deeper and you’ll learn that cornet soloist and pianist Leon Bismark “Bix” Beiderbecke was born in Davenport, Iowa, in 1903 and died in Queens, New York, of alcoholism and lobar pneumonia just 28 years later.
But his spirit lives on in his hometown—at the annual Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival—which is where Brendan Wolfe, author of Finding Bix: The Life and Afterlife of a Jazz Legend, first encountered him.
Wolfe, managing editor of the Encyclopedia Virginia website, grew up in Davenport. An aspiring writer and historian, he says he “was really into history and I would sit at the dining room table and write a novel about Valley Forge or a comic strip about D-Day.” Wolfe attended the University of Iowa for undergraduate and graduate school, and it was there that he started writing about music. This month his first book, Finding Bix, hits bookstores and becomes a part of the bibliography about the elusive cornet player.
Thanks to the preservation of historical documents and correspondence, certain details of Beiderbecke’s life can be sketched out. We know that he was expelled from a boarding school in Chicago at age 19. He was often described by friends as being slovenly, the creative genius who couldn’t remember, or didn’t care, to change his clothes. We know from reviews of his playing that he was appreciated in his own time. After hearing Beiderbecke perform a solo with Paul Whiteman’s band, Louis Armstrong wrote, “I’m telling you, those pretty notes went all through me.”
During his most prolific period Beiderbecke maintained a grueling schedule. He consumed too much alcohol, had at least two nervous breakdowns, went to rehab, turned to alcohol again and died young. We also know that at age 18 Beiderbecke was accused of cornering a sight-impaired 5-year-old girl in a garage and demanding that she show herself to him. He was arrested and held on a $1,500 bond, the charge dropped only after the girl’s father determined it would be detrimental to her to testify.
Wolfe examines all of these accounts in detail, but rather than trying to create a definitive portrayal of Beiderbecke, he is more interested in exploring the musician’s blurry edges, often challenging the authoritative tone of previous claims by other scholars. (He even becomes the first Beiderbecke historian to discover that a 1929 feature in the Davenport Democrat was largely plagiarized, including the quotes it attributed to Beiderbecke.) “[Finding Bix] is almost a meta biography of Beiderbecke,” Wolfe says, “a story of all the stories and how they’ve been told and what they add up to and what kind of meaning we can make of it.”
Essential Bix Beiderbecke
“I’m Coming Virginia” Originally recorded in September 1926 by African-American vocalist Ethel Waters. Beiderbecke recorded his take, with Frankie Trumbauer on C-melody sax, in May 1927.
“In a Mist” This 1927 cut is one of two Beiderbecke recordings where he is playing an original composition. As the story goes, when asked what he wanted to title the piano solo, Beiderbecke responded, “Dunno. I’m in a fog.” After a slight revision, the title stuck.
“Singin’ the Blues” This tune was first recorded by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1920. Beiderbecke laid down his version with Frankie Trumbauer on C-melody sax and Eddie Lang on guitar in 1927.
Within the narrative of this meta biography, Wolfe becomes a character himself. “I thought of myself like a film documentarian,” he says, “putting the camera on my shoulder and going out and engaging people and engaging the material.” He is at heart an essayist, and his writing tends to ruminate on a question or, in the case of Beiderbecke, many questions. How and why do we create narratives about artists that elevate them to legends and distort or deny reality? How do we reconcile an artist’s flawed and sometimes ugly character with the soul-stirring art he creates? Does commerce sully art? What does it mean to sell out? Are artists by nature self-destructive? “Ultimately that’s what kept my interest with Beiderbecke,” Wolfe says, “…how any argument you want to have you can put him in the middle of it.”
“The problem with Beiderbecke’s multitudes, though,” Wolfe writes in the book, “is that they can sometimes cancel each other out so that, voilà! Beiderbecke disappears.” Wolfe likens the nature of Beiderbecke to the music he creates: “Jazz isn’t here to stay; it’s here to disappear. …Which is why I think it’s the perfect music for Beiderbecke.” But Wolfe is comfortable with the possibility that aspects of Beiderbecke’s life and character remain ambiguous. “The pleasure comes, both as a writer and a reader, not in reaching a conclusion but in engaging the question,” says Wolfe.
“I’m always trying to do something a little impossible,” says Chris Dammann about blending jazz, grunge, electronic, classical and mbira music into compositions for his avant-garde group, Restroy. “There’s something beautiful about impossible things.”
Photo by Amy Jackson
When Chris Dammann was a kid growing up in Charlottesville, he spent a lot of time looking at his dad’s upright bass. “I wonder what that does, to be in that corner,” Dammann recalls thinking about the instrument. He decided to find out for himself at age 14, when he took the bass out of the corner and started plucking its fat strings. He never put it back.
Dammann, now 32, has spent a lot of time with that bass. He played it all through high school, improvising and taking lessons from Charlottesville Symphony principal bassist and UVA music faculty member Pete Spaar. He played it all through music school at Northwestern University and in regular sessions at the Velvet Lounge in Chicago. He’s carted it across the region in a station wagon (it’s too big for airplanes) and played it on the road with Mexo-Americana group David Wax Museum and the jazzy 3.5.7 Ensemble.
He’s spent so much time with the instrument that it’s even affected him physically. Hunching over the bass’s belly has changed how he stands, the orientation of his hips and his posture. “There’s nothing sensible about the upright bass,” Dammann says with a laugh, “but that’s part of its charm.”
He’ll bring that bass—and some of the music he’s composed on it—to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church-Unitarian Universalist on Wednesday evening, to play with his avant-garde group Restroy, combining elements of jazz, mbira, electronic, noise, classical and grunge music into a singular, experimental sound that’ll compel you to stop what you’re doing, listen and ask, “What is that?”
Dammann composes because he needs to. Usually, his music begins with the act of listening to his record collection—Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Charles Mingus, Pauline Oliveros—to “exhaust the possibilities” of whatever he’s listening to. When he can no longer find what he’s looking for in those records in that moment, he’ll create what he needs to hear.
“Whenever I play, I imagine I’m sitting in the audience and try and play exactly what I would like to hear as a listener,” says Dammann. “I’m always looking for something physical and visceral—things that quicken the heart and make me want to dance.” As for what specific feelings he’s looking to evoke with Restroy’s music, Dammann says wryly that information is “top secret.”
Dammann composes most of the music for Restroy and plays bass and electronics in the group that also features Cathy Monnes on cello, James Davis on trumpet, Kevin Davis on violin, Tobin Summerfield on guitar, Nick Anaya on saxophone, Mabel Kwan on piano and John Niekrasz on drums. Dammann likes to give Restroy musicians something challenging to play, just enough information to know what’s going on, but not so much that they can get away with not listening. “Listening is the most important part of it for me,” says Dammann. “I think of a musician as just a highly skilled, highly attuned listener.”
On tracks such as “Chris&CathyBFFS4 EvahEver,” off of Restroy’s 2016 release, Saturn Return, Dammann ponders texture to give form to music for improvisation. On another track, “Dangu Rangu,” he’s arranged a traditional mbira piece that isn’t necessarily an authentic representation of the music that originated in Zimbabwe, but rather an exploration of what he finds fascinating about it: “The long lines, the feel of pulse without meter. There is meter…but all the cross-rhythms obscure it to my ear until it just sounds like four on the floor, pulse,” he says, adding that he’s captivated by “how spontaneously musical it sounds.”
Dammann knows there’s probably not a huge audience for this highly experimental sound, and he’s okay with that. But for the audience he does have, he encourages close listening.
Music is everywhere—murmuring under the hubbub of voices in a coffee shop, blaring from the car ahead of you at a stoplight and in your earbuds as you answer emails. It’s on the stereo while you cook dinner and in the movies and TV shows you watch. We’re always listening, but we’re listening in addition to doing something else—listening is rarely an act of its own.
If you let music pour into your ears and seep into your brain, your heart, your blood, you can absorb it to the point where it becomes a part of you and you’ll feel ownership over the sound. Even if you didn’t write it, you might feel like you did—that’s how involved Dammann wants you to get with this music.
“Sometimes, when you go see music, it’s like you the listener are making it happen in some magical way, and I’m always looking for that. When you’re the performer, you can engage directly with that, and if it’s subtle enough, it brings everyone into the process. …Listening is a sacred thing.”
Restroy plays Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church-Unitarian Universalist on Wednesday, April 12 at 8pm.
