By Anne W. Semmes
Celebrants of jazz across town will soon be headed for the seasonal closing Fall Benefit Concert of BackCountry Jazz on Friday, November 21 at the Round Hill Community House. The concert arranged by artistic and music director Bennie Wallace marks the ninth Greenwich jazz concert this year, with those jazzy gatherings over the summer at that backcountry “Great Lawn” attracting a regular 450-plus attendees Unless with rain, the concert would move to the horse barn of Kelsey Farm with its “incredible acoustics,” tells Wallace, noting, “Easy Kelsey’s been a gracious host.”
Wallace brings his decades long skills as a tenor saxophonist to the musical stage and can bring together famed jazz musicians to join him in his concerts, most regularly Herlin Riley, master drummer from New Orleans. Performing with Riley at the November concert will be 2024 Grammy nominated jazz pianist and Julliard educator Donald Vega; “mesmerizing” alto saxophonist Godwin Louis, a professor at Berklee College of Music; “most recorded” bassist Peter Washington; “melodic” guitarist Ed Cherry; and “standout” 25-year-old vocalist Tyreek McDole who serves as Artist Ambassador for BackCountry Jazz.
Singing along with McDole will be years-attending BackCountry student Ciara Bustillo-Rodriguez. “She’s a wonderful flute player, and a really talented singer,” tells Wallace. Having heard her sing in a concert, he says, “She got to my heart… I’m just so proud of this young lady.”
Wallace had arrived in his educative music career working with students beginning in the fourth and fifth grades, “and now we’ve got kids that have graduated from conservatories in music schools and universities, some still in school…featuring them in concerts as on November 21. So, Ciara is going to be singing with Tyreek and Herlin and Donald.”
Benny’s educative jazz imprint in Bridgeport
Wallace adds also, “We’ve got kids that we developed since they were children who now teach at our camp.” Wallace refers to his Bridgeport summer music camps that began in 2010 after he was recruited by Bridgeport Public Schools to arrange small concerts. “At the beginning, we were just working with children, giving them something positive to do in the summer… Over the years it’s turned into a first-rate jazz education.”
Proud he is also of ‘a new crop of young kids,” the new BackCountry BeBoppers so named for an advanced performing ensemble. “These kids are taking off,” shares Wallace, adding, “And then at camp’s end, when we had the concert, I told the audience these kids need to keep playing together through the year. And one of the mothers said, “I’ll do it as we’ve got a piano at our house, and we’ll host it.’ So, we’re doing it.”
So, trace all this jazz education to 1997 when the Wallace’s’ returned to Greenwich from Los Angelos where Wallace was writing movie music. “So, we came back and it was a beautiful spring day,” says Wallace, who proclaimed, “I’m never going back to Los Angelos.” Wallace was soon writing a score for a Showtimes series.
Kickoff for the BackCountry outdoor concerts
Count Joan Warburg, late of back country Greenwich for leading Wallace the concert way in Greenwich, reaching out to him to play at her benefit event. Other invites followed, and those BackCountry free outdoor jazz concerts – now labeled Greenwich Jazz Festival – would become a summer fixture in Greenwich. Add the North Greenwich Congregational Church for an occasional concert or “workshop.” “It’s kind of all consuming,” says Wallace, “and I play in most of the concerts.”
So, with those free concerts are the musicians paid? “The first bylaw was that we never ask a musician to play for nothing,” when, “musicians are always asked to play for free. And musicians are all independent. They don’t have the security that people in normal jobs have. We always try to make it fair. We have musicians who make 10 times what we pay.” And importantly, “We have donors that have been generous, and that’s the only way it happens.”
What makes jazz special
So, what is it about jazz that makes it so special? “Every form of American music has elements of jazz in it, “says Wallace, “whether it’s country music or pop music or Broadway music, even hip-hop music. And if you go back to the early part of the 20th century, Dvorak and Stravinsky and Ravel were coming over and paying close attention to jazz. It’s a music that comes from the musical vocabulary of our culture.” And “When you come and hear a jazz concert, you’re watching a spiritual event. The musicians on stage are in a meditative state …listening to each other and we’re creating something together that will never happen again.”
“Jazz entertains people,” he continues, “and hopefully inspires them and challenges them… That same kind of experience happens with jazz and Indian music, with great spiritual music, like Mahalia Jackson and Marion Williams, or the great spiritual music from Mozart or Bach. Some of them are about Jesus, and some of them are about the girl that left me behind in the bar… But I find there are still musicians who are creating in the way that has always made jazz great. And I look for those musicians to bring to the BackCountry jazz concerts.”
And yes, he does have favorite jazz composers. “I love Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. And Thelonious Monk.” He also loves “the great songwriters from the first half of the 20th century, Gershwin and Cole Porter… And we draw from that for our performances, and we write original music that hopefully is coming from that same tradition.”
Composing and recording
Is he still composing music? “Well, not all the time,” he tells, “But I’ve got a lot of tunes I’ve written over my career, tunes I wrote for jazz records and for movies… all that to draw from when we do concerts.” But he has composed two new tunes, circa 2024. “They’re on the album.” Wallace is referring to his just produced first BackCountry Jazz record album. He displays its standout back cover showing him with his tenor saxophone and fellow musicians recording in a Manhattan studio. Evident in the front is drummer Herlin Riley.
Those two new tunes, “Srubie” and “Handcuffs” are listed in a mix of “Tennessee Waltz” (Wallace is Chattanooga-born), “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,” “Desafinado,” and “These Foolish Things.”
Wallace looks forward to his November 21 concert at the Round Hill Community House, a location “we got really comfortable with because Jeanette completely transforms that barren room into a jazz club, with drapes on the wall and nightclub seating.”
“We’re having a good year,” he concludes. “There’s been so much going on and we’re just trying to keep up with it. The education program is growing. And we’re beginning to start discussions of bringing our educational programs to underserved children in Greenwich.”
“We’re getting more people coming to the outdoor concerts than ever before. We have children running around on the lawn. We have an old fellow in a wheelchair. It’s all ages. We’re starting a series of records… You struggle and you struggle, but right now we’re riding high. What is it we say down South? We’re ‘strutting in high cotton.’”
For more information on the upcoming concert, visit https://give.classy.org/BCJazzFallBenefitConcert2025, or email jeanette@backcountryjazz.org
