NOTE: “Today” and “tonight” refer to Friday, March 25.
PORT ANGELES — Put on some dark shades, a fedora and sit back this evening, snapping your fingers to the swinging melodies of cool jazz at Peninsula College.
“Take a walk down memory lane during this evening of lively classic American music featuring the works of two of the most revered award-winning composers and songwriters — Hoagy Carmichael and Cole Porter,” said Kari Desser, Peninsula College communication coordination specialist.
On stage to lead this musical charge of 1930s era jazz will be Tom Varner on French horn, Linda Dowdell on piano and Ted Enderle on bass.
The trio will perform Carmichael’s “Georgia on My Mind” and “Stardust,” and Porter’s “I Get a Kick out of You,” “Too Darn Hot,” “Night and Day” and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”
Dowdell has known Varner since their childhood in Millburn, N.J., but this will be their first performance together in about 15 years, she said.
Dowdell and Enderle also have performed together, having collaborated during the Friends of Brubeck concert at the college last spring.
“I am so looking forward to playing these beautiful classic American songs with Linda and Ted,” Varner said.
Dowdell agreed.
“What a treat to play these wonderful songs with Tom and Ted,” she said.
“Tom is so innovative and dexterous, a true master. The color the French horn brings is absolutely unique. What fun to reinterpret these familiar songs . . . with a new instrument and an old friend.”
Organized chaos
“I love the freedom and the beauty of jazz — being able to ‘go your own way,’ yet still collaborate at the same time,” Varner said.
While jazz can sometimes be a conglomeration of “organized chaos,” Varner continued, it also can be “organized peaceful beauty too.”
And, he said, it can be easy to get lost in the music.
That, he said “depends on the situation.” Sometimes his mind is “open” and he has “no thought,” while at other moments he thinks “deeply about the music at hand.”
Dowdell also enjoys the open ended interpretation of jazz unique to each performer.
“Improvisation is something I’ve always enjoyed, although I was trained in the classics,” she said.
“Taking the kernel of an idea — or a musical phrase — and amplifying it through improvisation is appealing to me. Doing that with other people is even more fulfilling — more ideas, more creativity.”
Varner
This rare visit marks Varner’s first performance on the Olympic Peninsula, Desser said.
Varner, who lives in Seattle, is internationally known as one of the top living pioneers of improvisational jazz and new music on the French horn and is an inventive, witty and passionate composer, Desser said.
Varner has been performing on the French Horn since grade school, he said.
“This crazy instrument picked me in fourth grade [and I] never looked back,” he said, adding he can coax sounds out of the instrument such as “whale sounds, wolf sounds, very low notes [and] singing notes” that cannot easily be reproduced on other instruments.
Since relocating with his family from New York City to Seattle in 2005, Varner has performed at the Vancouver, Earshot and Bumbershoot festivals, the Seattle Art Museum, the Royal Room, Tula’s and other clubs, and has worked as a leader and sideman alongside many Seattle greats such as Wayne Horvitz and Jim Knapp.
Varner is an assistant professor of jazz performance at Cornish College of the Arts.
In addition to his 14 CDs as a leader and composer, he plays on more than 70 other CDs, with Miles Davis, Quincy Jones, Steve Lacy, John Zorn and many others.
Varner won the 2000 Jazz Composers Alliance Composition Award and has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell, Civitella and Blue Mountain arts colonies.
He also has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jazz Works program funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
Dowdell
Dowdell — a pianist, composer and arranger currently residing in Sequim — moved here from New York City a few years ago.
Prior to life on the Olympic Peninsula, Dowdell toured the world as musical director of both Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project and the Mark Morris Dance Group.
During the 1990s, Dowdell’s musical, “The Big Window,” toured to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland.
While living in New York City, she worked closely with Hoagy B. Carmichael — son of the songwriter — developing a musical using Carmichael songs, as well as producing concerts and tours of his music during the early 2000s.
Enderle
Enderle has had a long career in music that began in Philadelphia where he performed at weddings and special events.
Currently residing on Bainbridge Island, he gigs with groups Jazz in Blume and Savoy Nights, the latter of which performs the first Monday of every month at 7 Cedars Casino in Blyn.
Tickets and show time
The trio will perform at 7 tonight in the Maier Performance Hall at Peninsula College, 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
Tickets are $15.
Proceeds from the event benefit the Peninsula College Foundation, which provides services and programs for students attending the college.
Tickets can be purchased online at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-Tickets until noon today.
Tickets also can be purchased at the door on a space-available basis because seating is limited.
