Akron's 91-year old tenor saxophone legend and jazz statesman from the Howard Street era bridges the gap between past & present in a not-to-miss BLU debut! Featuring Jimmy Noel, Theron Brown, Dan Wilson, Tommy Lehman, Dave Morgan, Zaire Darden.
From Akron Life Magazine, “3 Jazz Musicians to Know” (March 7, 2019):
When the sun went down in the 1950s, Jim Noel would don his best suit and head out to Howard Street to play. Saxophone in hand, he hit Benny Rivers, riffing off his fellow musicians, braiding extemporaneous notes into new songs every night. He’d play a set with hepcats like Gil Roberts kicking the drums, Newman Williams slapping the stand-up bass and Joe Bradley tickling the ivories. “We had pretty good musicians playing, and we could play just about anything,” says the 91-year-old Akron resident.
In his 20s, Noel honed his chops with his North Hill neighbor, piano luminary Pat Pace. He got so good that Count Basie’s band invited him to join them on the road after hearing him play in Cleveland. The then-father of two declined.
Tall and lean, Noel looks a couple decades younger than his age. He’s one of the last cats standing in the area from the Howard Street heyday, and he keeps the sound alive by practicing every day and occasionally playing out with friends. Though much has changed in Akron since those hot midcentury nights, Noel’s passion for jazz still simmers.
“There’s a difference between jazz and other music,” he says “It’s a way of expressing how you feel, and each song has a different feeling, so you play it differently. You play what you feel inside of that song. It’s all coming from you.”
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Join us at BLU Jazz+ as we unite one of the region’s most iconic jazz figures with our latest generation of local talent for a beautiful evening of live music in the Rubber City – get your tickets now!
(Photo by Tylar Sutton)