Review by Bill Bengtson on JUNE 23, 2023. Published on postandcourier.com.
Aspiring jazz musicians are getting a boost this week through a jazz camp being offered through Joye in Aiken, and several generations of listeners got the chance to enjoy the genre Thursday evening, taking in a concert at the USC Aiken Etherredge Center.
“This is basically our vacation home,” said drummer Bryan Carter, referring to Aiken as he prepared for a turn at the microphone. “We love it.”
Carter and his fellow Juilliard-trained performers, whose show ended in a standing ovation, are all from the jazz camp’s faculty. The corps is also composed of Dan Chmielinski, bass; Mathis Picard, piano; Jade Elliott, saxophone; and Riley Mulherkar, trumpet. The quintet also took part in some role-switching, for a rendition of “Unforgettable,” as Carter took a turn on vocals and Mulherkar handled the drums.
The song, made famous by Nat King Cole in the early 1950s, underwent some localization of lyrics, as Carter sang, “That’s why, Aiken, it’s incredible that a place so unforgettable thinks that we are unforgettable, too.”
Creations were by such figures as Picard (a composition that he dedicated to his mother and Madagascar, her home country), Wayne Shorter, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock and the camp crew itself. “We wrote our own blues, with the students,” Mulherkar said, in introducing one of the songs, known for the moment as “The Aiken Blues.”
Among the camp’s major sponsors were Shaw Industries and Augusta Aiken ENT. Jim and Sandra Field sponsored the concert, in memory of Jack Mullin, who died this year and was an active booster of several local charities.
His widow, Paula Mullin, was on hand for Thursday’s show. “I had a wonderful time,” she recalled. “It was really fabulous, and I can’t thank Sandra and Jim enough for doing that. It was a total surprise.”
Sandra Field, Joye in Aiken’s board chairman, made similar comments. “The concert was fabulous, and we had just a tremendous audience response and a good-sized audience, so we were very happy with the jazz camp faculty concert.”
The camp, running June 22-25, mainly draws students from around Aiken County, but has a student from Lexington and another from Augusta on board this year., and past participants have been from as far afield as New Jersey, Field said. “It’s wide-reaching. We just have a tremendously talented faculty, and the kids are really working hard.”
Instruction, she said, is from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a variety of classes through the day, with the only break being for lunch, “so it’s quite an intense day.”
Camp participants, focusing this week on such topics as improvisation, performance, theory and history, were among the audience members for “a wonderful performance,” as described by Cody Anderson, vice president of the Joye in Aiken festival’s board of trustees.
“We are so blessed to have such great talent to be able to come to Aiken and perform not only for residents and the supporters of Joye in Aiken, but also for the students that are participating in the jazz camp,” Anderson said, noting that this year’s camp has 20 students on board.
Plans are also in place for an Etherredge Center jazz performance Sunday, featuring camp faculty and students. Admission is free and showtime is 3 p.m.