LISTEN HERE! Symphony Goes On Record

‘DEAN OF COMPOSERS’ GRADUATES TO COMMERCIAL SUCCESS

By Kevin Kinder

Posted: November 20, 2009 at 6 a.m.

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It’s a big deal to have a symphony recording at all, says John Jeter, musical director and conductor of the Fort Smith Symphony.

In the tightening artistic community, it’s increasingly tough to have the funds to make a worthwhile recording.

“A lot of symphonies aren’t recording anymore,” he says.

“It demonstrates the success and artistic abilities of our symphony.”

And that it is the work of William Grant Still that the Fort Smith group is recording?

An even bigger deal, perhaps.

Jeter says this is the first time that the late composer Still, respected by colleagues and labeled as “the dean of African-American composers,” has been commercially recorded.

Still was born in Mississippi, but he later lived in Arkansas before his artistic successes took him to New York and Los Angeles.

“He’s really the closest thing we have to an Arkansas native as a symphony composer,” Jeter says.

The symphony’s recording is actually its second of Still’s work. It was released, like the previous recording, on the Naxos label, considered to be the largest classic music label in the world.

The more recent of the two recordings offers the local symphony’s interpretation of three of Still’s works: Symphony No. 5: “Western Hemisphere,” “Poem for Orchestra” and Symphony No.

4: “Autochthonous.”

As someone who grew up in the South, it should come as no surprise that Still’s work reflects jazz and Delta blues sounds, even though Still was trained in the classic arts. Jeter calls it a blend of “Austrio-German symphonic music” with blues and jazz.

Still, perhaps more so than at the time of his death in 1978, is enjoying success.

“He’s suffered because of prejudice,” Jeter says. “It’s been a long time coming for him.

People always really enjoy his music.”

Jeter is currently representing the symphony at a conference looking at the importance of Still as a composer. That conference, called “Music and the Arts: Still Our Only Future,” continues through Sunday in Natchez, Miss.

“Slowly, there is a greater interest in performing his work,” Jeter says.

In April 2011, the Fort Smith Symphony will record two more of Still’s symphonies and complete the cycle of his recordings. That album is expected to be released on the Naxos label in the months that follow the recording process.

Making The Rounds

Some may know him asan actor on shows such as “St. Elsewhere,” but Ronny Cox has long been known as a musician, too. In fact, Cox combined the two talents in the movie “Deliverance,” where he was one of the two actors who played the song “Dueling Banjos” in that film.

Cox tours the country, and he’ll make a wide path through the area, performing in Fayetteville, Harrison and Eureka Springs on successive evenings. He is touring in support of his latest release, “Songs With Repercussions.” He’ll be joined at the three local gigs by rural West Fork resident and picker Jack Williams.

Catch the duo at 8 p.m. today at GoodFolk Productions on Block Avenue in Fayetteville, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Lyric Theater in Harrison and as part of the Eureka Springs House concert series at 17 Elk Street in that town at 7 p.m. Sunday.

Not So Dead

Folk not your thing? How about something completely different? Although he was never in the Grateful Dead, guitarist Steve Kimock has made quite a career through his ties to musicians associated with Jerry Garcia and his bandof music-making hippies from California.

Kimock formed a jam band, Zero, which earned him a deal of notoriety on the West Coast. His most recent project is called Crazy Engine, and that group includes his son John Morgan Kimock on drums and Melvin Seals, who played in the Jerry Garcia band for nearly two decades, on keys.

Crazy Engine will visitGeorge’s Majestic Lounge this weekend for a two-night run.

The band performs as the late show tonight and Saturday, so expect the music to start sometime after 9 p.m. But $20 will get you through the door either night.

KEVIN KINDER COVERS MUSIC ACROSS NORTHERN AND WESTERN ARKANSAS. E-MAIL HIM AT KKINDER@NWAONLINE.COM.

Entertainment, Pages 23 on 11/20/2009

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