Series features live music, interactive exhibit, film, talks
By Robert Cloud
Roots of Jazz will present a special series of live performances, lectures, paintings, a play and a movie April 25 through May 9.
Programs will feature African drumming, ragtime piano, blues and Wisconsin jazz.
Winchester Academy, the Waupaca Area Public Library and the Waupaca Historical Society collaborated on the series.
Jazz roots in Waupaca
The series opens with “A Durable Dane: The Eddy Hanson Story” at 6 p.m. Monday, April 25, in the lower level of the Waupaca Area Public Library.
Written and narrated by Patrick Phair with Linda Harmon on piano and Barb Laedtke consulting, the program tells the life story and presents the music of Waupaca native Eddy Hanson.
Born in 1893, Ethwell Hanson, who preferred being called Eddy, began piano lessons at age 8. He attended Waupaca High School where he played the saxophone and played the organ at local movie theaters.
During World War I, Hanson joined the U.S. Navy and was assigned to accompany silent film stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks as they toured the country promoting war bonds.
Although he moved to Chicago, Hanson remained connected to Waupaca, performing on the organ at the opening ceremonies Palace Opera House in 1920.
Throughout the 1920s. Hanson performed on radio, accompanied silent movies on organ and sold his music to piano-roll recordings.
His songs include “Rattlesnake Rag,” Desertland” Oriental Fox Trot” and “The Wisconsin Waltz,” among many other.
He died in 1986 at the Wisconsin Veterans Home in King.
The performance is free.
Library exhibit
Following Phair and Harmon’s presentation, the Waupaca Area Public Library will host an opening reception for the exhibit, “Waupaca’s Ragtime King: The Life and Music of Eddy Hanson, ” in the lower level Exhibit Room .
The free exhibit is scheduled to run from April 16 to June 4.
Liz Kneer, the library’s exhibit room coordinator, said the exhibit “will look at the foundations of jazz and focus on Eddy Hanson and his music.”
Historic photographs, correspondence, instruments, interactive components and recordings that may be accessed through QR codes on smart phones will be featured.
A traveling exhibit, “Ella Sings the Songbook,” will showcase photos, original sheet music and a pop-up piano in commemoration of with Ella Fitzgerald.
“She was the first widely recognized jazz artist in the United States,” Kneer said.
“Ella Sings the Songbook” is one of five traveling exhibits offered by the Great American Songbook Foundation.
The library will also host a Roots of Jazz virtual exhibit at its website.
Children’s Librarian Sue Abrahamson will present a virtual story time about jazz and playing the trombone. She has asked Greg Biba and his quartet to give her a 30-second lead-in of “When the Saints Go Marching In” so that the children listening to the story can hear the brass sound as well.
Lectures, movie
Ryan Korb will discuss how African percussion became one of the roots of jazz at 6:30 p.m. Monday, May 2, at the library.
A lecturer of jazz percussion and jazz studies at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Korb received his bachelor’s degree in music performance from Lawrence University.
Korb co-leads an Afro-Cuban drum trio, Africa->West. The trio plays original compositions based on traditional African and Cuban music.
Dr. Jack Rhodes will show and discuss “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, May 5, in the library’s lower level meeting room.
With songs written by Irving Berlin, this 1938 musical traces two decades of jazz from ragtime to swing through the story of musician Roger Grant, aka Alexander.
Directed by Henry King, the film stars Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Ethel Merman and Jack Haley.
Rhodes received his doctorate from the University of Texas Austin and held faculty positions at Colorado College, the University of Utah, and Miami University in Ohio, where he served as chair of the Department of Communication and as executive director of Miami’s regional campus in Hamilton.
While at Miami he taught a graduate class in Rhetoric of Film and has now served for several years as a seminar teacher of Film Studies at Lawrence University’s Bjorklunden Campus.
Dr. Kurt Dietrich will discuss Wisconsin Jazz at 6:30 p.m. Monday, May 9, at the library.
Dietrich is a retired professor of music and Barbara De Frees Professor of Performing Arts at Ripon College.
Dietrich graduated from Lawrence University, received his master’s degree from Northwestern University and earned his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
At Ripon College Dietrich directed the Symphonic Wind Ensemble and the Jazz Ensemble, taught brass instruments and a variety of courses.
He was a trombonist with Matrix, an Appleton-based jazz fusion group that performed at the Monterey and Newport jazz festivals in the 1970s and has released five recordings.
Player pianos
Catherine Hennessy Wolter will present “Player Pianos: Bringing Music to the Masses” at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 3, at the Waupaca Depot, 525 Oak St.
A scholar in residence at the Department of Music and Theatre Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Hennessy Wolter received a bachelor’s degree in music liberal arts from UW-Eau Claire, a master’s degree in musicology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a doctorate in musicology from UIUC.
Her dissertation was “Sound Conversations: Print Media, Player Pianos, and Early Radio in the United States.”
Performances
Rusty Nails will perform at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 4, at Simpson’s Restaurant, 222 S. Main St. Admission is free.
The group is dedicated to the preservation of American blues music.
With Steve Heiner on resonator and acoustic guitars, Ben Lillge on blues harp and upright bass and singer Cindy Lillge, Rusty Nails will explore the relationship between pre-war blues and early jazz.
They will celebrate musicians such as Blind Blake, Lonnie Johnson and Bessie Smith who helped shape the legacy of American blues.
The Limanya Drum and Dance Ensemble will perform at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 5, at Waupaca Middle School.
Dating back thousands of years, the djembe drum held deep spiritual and social significance in the celebrations of birth, death and marriage Western Africa.
The rhythms and associated dances are considered among the roots of American jazz.
Under the direction of Mandjou Mara and Maya Kadakia, the Limanya Ensemble will perform traditional music and dance from Guinea and Mali, West Africa.
Their performance blends song, dance, drumming and theater.
Due to limited seating, advance tickets are required for admission, but available at no cost at The Bookcellar, 110 S. Main St., 715-258-2555.
Bob Milne will perform ragtime piano at 7 p.m. Friday, May 6, at Danes Hall, 301 N. Main St.
A world-renowned piano player, Milne spent three days at the Library of Congress being filmed and documented.
Milne attended the Eastman School of Music at the age of 17, and then became assistant first horn in the Rochester Philharmonic at age 19.
“After symphony concerts the students all went and hung out in local places. When the piano player didn’t show up at a sing-a-long saloon one night, Mr. Milne filled in. They hired him on the spot,” according to Milne’s website.
Based in Detroit, Milne played piano in bars and saloons or 25 years. He began playing in concert halls in 1991.
He currently teaches music history at various universities around the country, and is also the founder and director of the Frankenmuth Ragtime Festival in Michigan.
Due to limited seating, advance tickets are required for admission, but available at no cost at The Bookcellar, 110 S. Main St., 715-258-2555,
Jazz and blues vocalist Erin Krebs will perform at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 7, at the Waupaca High School Commons.
Krebs and her partner, will showcase the music of classic female blues singers such as Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith.
Krebs was awarded the WAMI (Wisconsin Area Music Industry) Female Vocalist of the Year for 2019 and in 2018 the Krebs and Johnston duo was recognized as the 2018 Jazz Artist of the Year.
She was also a nominee for Female Vocalist of the Year (2016, 2017, 2018) and Jazz Artist of the Year in 2017.
Krebs received her bachelor’s of music education degree in 2003 from UW-Oshkosh.
She taught music in schools for a decade, and is currently focusing on her career as a vocalist and teaching private lessons on woodwinds, piano and voice.
Krebs has been a featured guest with the Oshkosh Symphony Orchestra, The Jazz Orgy, UW-Oshkosh Jazz Ensembles, Fond du Lac Symphonic Band, and more.
Her debut album, Love Always Wins, was released in June 2016.
Due to limited seating, advance tickets are required for admission, but available at no cost at The Bookcellar, 110 S. Main St., 715-258-2555.
Art auction
Doris Weed created an original artwork that will be displayed at Roots of Jazz events from April 25 through May 9.
The artwork is framed and will be placed on silent auction.
Bids will be accepted until the final event on May 9, when the artwork will be awarded to the highest bidder.
Financial support
Roots of Jazz events are supported by a gift from the Selma and Gerald Knoepfel Memorial Fund of Winchester Academy, a fund within the Waupaca Area Community Foundation. The late Selma Knoepfel, a science teacher, and Gerald Knoepfel, a music teacher, taught in Waupaca and were part of the Waupaca community for many years.