Karen Chandler: The Jazzstorian
Karen Chandler dances while she talks. She uses hand gestures, too, but it’s the dancing that gets us. The only music at the Avery Research Center is the tunes that are be-bopping around in her head.
Still, it’s catchy. Though we can’t hear the music, we almost start dancing ourselves.
It’s rare to come across a person so animated by her day-to-day tasks that she starts a little ditty in the middle of an interview. But here she is, snapping her fingers as she talks about the people who influenced the exhibit she’s just launched. Dizzy Gillespie. Duke Ellington. And an extraordinary fellow to lesser acclaim named Reverend Daniel J. Jenkins.
If you’re not familiar with Chandler or the Charleston Jazz Initiative she created, you’re not alone. For six years, she and partner Jack McCray – Charleston native and long-time music journalist – have been working behind the scenes, quietly traveling the country in an effort to piece together the holy city’s influence on the legacies of jazz. Even some of the world’s most prized jazz critics – we get the impression they’re the Louis Armstrongs of jazz history – joined the initiative’s advisory board without fanfare.
All that’s about to change. Because soon – by early next year, we’re told – we’ll start getting a taste of the stories that get Chandler movin’ and groovin’.
Stories like that of Jenkins, who is a big deal to say the least. He started one of the nation’s first private black orphanages, right here in Charleston, and in a few short years had himself a music school famous for its stellar brass players.
It’s this tale and others like them that we’re hoping will offer a fresh alternative to our carriage tours and civil war sights. Maybe even help influence a little pick-me-up for Charleston’s jazz scene (which we expect, since the initiative’s music director is cherished local drummer Quentin Baxter).
If you’re like us and can’t wait for 2010, keep an eye on our calendar. The Charleston Jazz Initiative’s annual event has come and gone, but a little birdie told us there may be an encore this fall.
When it comes, we’ll do a little dance to let you know.
Story by Heather Mueller
Photos by Caroline Millard and provided.
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