Jazz songs may not be hitting on the Billboard charts anymore, but still, jazz musicians have created a lasting friendship with classic American songbook. Byron Stripling, the vocalist and the trumpet player and also the leader of Friday’s Jazz Legends event, told that even though most of these songs were written during 1920s and 30s, this is an enduring music which continues to be played and sung right up to the artists of these days.
This type music has been mainly good to Byron, whose music career goes to take him across the world and into several recording studios and the long list includes his debut in the Carnegie Hall with Skitch Henderson as well as New York Pops; diddling in Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra; as well as touring with Clark Terry, Count Basie Orchestra and Woody Herman.
He told that for him it is just being on the stage. It does not matter where he is – it is just special. It is like a church. People come to the theater with lots of problems of their own. The performers on the stage have the duty to take the spectators to another place. To offer them love, peace, happiness and comfort through art, no matter whether it is music or theater or what.
The annual series of the jazz legends started thirteen years ago, an event for the well known musicians playing. Stripling stated it as straight-up-and-down and mainstream.