Up Jumped Spring: April Jazz Series

Written by Ruth Griggs

Article published in Northampton Living (April 2021)

“If it’s Tuesday, it must be Jazz Night in Northampton.”

For the past 10 years, each Tuesday at 7:30 PM, the Northampton Jazz Workshop has hosted a guest jazz artist, typically in from Boston, New York, or Hartford–with the Green Street Trio backing them up–for an hour-long performance. This is some seriously good live jazz, that 60 to 100 guests enjoy each week as they dine and sit back at the bar. Then at 9 PM, the producer of the Jazz Workshop, Paul Arslanian, calls forward some of the many student and visiting musicians that have gathered at the back of the room to play together in a jazz jam. The place usually quiets down around 10:30.

The Northampton Jazz Workshop made its start in 2010 at the beloved French restaurant, the Green Street Café, steps from the Smith College Campus. When the restaurant’s building was torn down, the Workshop packed up and moved to The Loft at the Clarion Hotel on Atwood Drive. When that hotel was torn down, the intrepid troupe moved to the City Sports Grille–the bar and lounge at Spare Time Entertainment on Pleasant Street.

Due to the pandemic, there has been no live jazz performed at City Sports Grille for the past year, and the Green Street Trio (Paul Arslanian on piano, George Kaye on bass, and Jon Fisher on drums) are eager to get back at it once it is safe to do so. And so are their hundreds of fans.

This month, in honor of April Jazz Appreciation Month and the Northampton Jazz Workshop, the Northampton Jazz Festival is presenting a virtual jazz series entitled “Up Jumped Spring” each Tuesday in April at 7:30 PM – because, well, it’s Jazz Night in Northampton.

Working collaboratively with Northampton Open Media and The Parlor Room, the Northampton Jazz Festival will produce four jazz performances of local and regional musicians that will stream over Facebook, YouTube, Channel 12 in Northampton and other online channels free each Tuesday in April at 7:30 PM. Ensembles will include the Convergence Trio, lead by pianist Eugene Uman, Director of the Vermont Jazz Center; Isosceles Groove, a highly talented family trio led by drummer Jacob Smith; the Fumi Tomita Trio, a bass player and professor of Music at UMass Amherst; and Carolyn Dufraine and company who will play a mixture of traditional and Gypsy jazz.

Make Tuesdays in April YOUR jazz night–visit northamptonjazzfest.org to learn more about these free concerts and how to log on to your favorite channel to hear some great, live jazz. Come out and support live jazz in April–Jazz Appreciation Month! Ruth Griggs is the President of the Northampton Jazz Festival.

For more information, go to northamptonjazzfest.org