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Ben Levin.
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Andrew Lyndon-Skeggs
Nirek CD 2016
Nirek Mokar.
Chase Garrett’s among a small crop of young pianists to move to St. Louis over the last few years, each of them digging into classic veins of American songcraft. Playing around town as a solo act and as a member of Sweetie & The Toothaches, Garrett’s bringing a long-running project of his to life on November 11, as his eighth annual Blues & Boogie Woogie Piano Stomp Festival will be held at the National Blues Museum.
The venue, he says, “I think is a perfectly fantastic venue for this. There are a lot of fantastic venues for blues and jazz in St. Louis. And there, I’ve seen a lot of great shows, as part of their Friday and Sunday night music series. The staff is very knowledgeable, very hospitable, very kind. It felt like a perfect venue for this event, with a professional stage in the Lumière Place Legends Room. It seats about 100 people. I wanted a nice, intimate listening room, with a professional stage, set in a beautiful location.”
An upbeat sort, Garrett says that the event will have a new, youthful focus this year.
“This is the eighth year I’ve been doing the festival,” he notes, “and a lot of the players have been the master of this music, the people performing longer than I’ve been alive, usually in their 40s on through to those in their 80s. This year, we’re featuring the future of blues and boogie woogie piano.”
The future, in this case, means teenagers. Along with himself, a pair of teen prodigies will be at the keys. They’ll play alongside a cherry-picked, all-star backing band, many of them from Garrett’s home state of Iowa, though that’s scarcely the only location of these players... As Garrett provides the liner notes:
Chase Garrett (Iowa City, Iowa), 14-year-old boogie woogie prodigy Nirek Mokar (Paris, France) and 18-year-old blues piano phenom Ben Levin (Cincinnati, Ohio) hit the stage alongside internationally acclaimed saxophonists Josh Baumgartner (St. Louis), David Gomez (St. Louis) and Saul Lubaroff (Iowa City, Iowa) as well as trumpet extraordinaire Al Naylor (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), belter of the blues miss Emilie Richard (St. Louis), world-renowned rockabilly and blues guitarist Elliot Sowell (St. Louis) phenomenal percussionist and artistic director of the Volcanic Blues Festival in Le-Mont Dore, France, Simon Boyer (Paris, France) and legendary bassist Craig Dove (Cedar Rapids, Iowa).
Levin’s been studying with Ricky Nye, an ace player and teacher from Cincinnati, with whom Garrett, too, has studied, calling Nye “a mentor.” In a very real sense, Garrett’s extending the tradition, by including a musician younger than he, but from the same musical family tree. At the same time, he’s bringing in a player from France, whose knowledge of English is limited, though his chops in the form are well beyond his years.
“I think this year’s special, focusing on the future of this music,” he says. “There are people here pushing this music to new heights. You’re always seeing people move to this town, helping make the scene thrive here in St. Louis. This showcase is focusing on the new generation, these phenomenal musicians who are 14 and 18 years old. I really want people to know that this isn’t some type of piano recital. These are real-deal players, who’ve been traveling to international blues festivals while still in high school. This is boogie woogie in the truest sense, and we want to give St. Louisans a sense of what it’s about and a real good reason to come out.”
To that end, here’s a preview video:
