Bud's on Broadway' concert Sunday

Trumpeter cum laude Jim Hynes and three of the most talented marquee players in the Knoxville jazz firmament, Mark Boling on guitar, Jon Hamar on bass, and Keith Brown on drums, are doing something wonderful for Father’s Day. It’s “Bud’s on Broadway” from 1 to 3 p.m. on Sunday, June 19. So if your dad loves Sondheim, Bernstein, Loesser, Hamlisch, Rodgers and Hammerstein et al, or if he just loves great jazz, bring a lawn chair to Bud’s Farmhouse Coffee Shop in Manhattan Place in Oak Ridge and pretend you’re in Times Square for the afternoon.

Jim Hynes knows Broadway like the back of his hand. He’s played in every theater and recording studio between Bryant Park and Lincoln Center. Over the last three decades, Jim has been in the pit bands of more Broadway shows than he can remember, between gigs with the likes of Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor and Paul Simon. And now, as the pandemic recedes faster than Johnny Depp's hairline, Jim is regularly playing on the Great White Way at performances of “Moulin Rouge,” “The Music Man,” “Mr. Saturday Night,” and “MJ.”

When I was a kid, I used to watch “The Today Show” in the morning with my dad while he shaved with his Norelco electric razor before catching his carpool to K-25. Dave Garroway and his various cohorts did the show in front of a huge window onto the bustling sidewalk of 42nd Street, and I always dreamt about looking into that window from the sidewalk. I wanted to be a New Yorker and know what Broadway meant.

That finally happened when I was 25 years old, right after my dad passed away, when I moved to the City and got a job at Joe Papp’s Public Theater when he had three record-setting shows on Broadway; Liz Swados's “Runaways,” 'Zake Shange's “For Colored Girls ...” and Michael Bennett's “A Chorus Line.” I found out at the most perfect moment in theatrical time exactly what Broadway meant. “Uncommonly rare, very unique/Peripatetic, poetic and chic.”

At least that’s what it meant to me. And it wasn’t just the Joe Papp productions. I dove into Broadway in the season of “Eubie,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “On the Twentieth Century,” and “Side by Side by Sondheim.” “It’s sharing little winks together/Drinks together/Kinks together/That makes marriage a joy.”

Oh man, those were the days.

I asked the cats playing “Bud’s on Broadway” what that mythical place means to them. Mark Boling, who retired two years ago from his job as coordinator of jazz studies at the University of Tennessee's School of Music, answered right away.

“My parents loved Broadway musicals. Some of the earliest recordings I heard at home as a child were soundtracks of musicals like 'Oklahoma!,' 'Camelot,' and 'Fiddler on the Roof.' Hearing that music at an early age probably helped attract me to jazz music later on. It gave me an aural reference for song forms and harmonies that are foundational to jazz improvisation.”

I asked if there’s something that distinguishes Broadway tunes from other songs in the Great American Songbook repertory. And Mark said, “I don’t think we approach playing Broadway tunes very differently than Great American Songbook tunes. They’re all songs, meaning they have lyrics. Even when we play instrumental versions of these tunes with lots of improvisation, it really helps in interpreting melodies if you know the lyrics!”

Drummer Keith Brown said, "I think what has elevated some of the Broadway songs into the Great American Songbook has been when they're performed and recorded by great artists outside of the shows they were written for, and thereby brought to greater popularity. A good example is a George Gershwin tune written for the 1928 musical 'Treasure Girl,' also used in 'Strike Up the Band,' called 'I've Got a Crush on You.' In the show, it was an upbeat, almost silly dialogue song. But compare that to the slower, more romantic single-voice version by Frank Sinatra, which became the version most people think of. Hundreds of tunes by Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Richard Rogers, etc. benefited from the same treatment of their songs."

It's like "Aquarius/Let the SunShine In." As one of two dozen songs in the tribal rock musical "Hair" (another Joe Papp production, which opened at the 900-seat Biltmore Theater on Broadway in October 1967), "Aquarius" was heard at 1,750 performances. But when the vocal group The Fifth Dimension got hold of it, "Aquarius" was a Billboard No. 1 hit for six weeks in 1969 and won Grammy Awards in 1970 for Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Group. Heard by countless millions on radio and TV, the tune became the de facto national anthem of the counterculture. It sits in the middle of the 100 best songs of all time. From Broadway to the Great American Songbook, by the exact process Keith Brown described.

It's always good to ask a professor what he thinks.

Keith has been a distinguished lecturer and professor of percussion at UT since 1985. That's the year "Singin' In the Rain" opened on Broadway.

Jon Hamar is assistant professor of bass at UT's School of Music. With an undergrad degree in Classical Double Bass from Eastern Washington University and a Master's in Jazz and Contemporary Media from the Eastman School of Music, Jon is as sturdy a foundation as any jazz group could hope to build on. And I guess he'll let us hear what Broadway means to him on the Sunday.

Why does Jim Hynes produce these sidewalk jazz concerts, and take up a special Sunday playing show tunes when he could just as easily be watching the Stanley Cup finals on the tube?

Because he's a player! Because he's a dyed in the wool, honest-to-God musician who's born to play the trumpet better than anybody else. And more than that, he's a jazz player, the most special of a special breed of cat. Top that with a true love of Broadway, past, present and future, and "Bud's on Broadway" makes perfect sense.

"OK, I get it/Maybe it starts with me!" Happy Father's Day.

John

This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Bud's on Broadway' free concert Sunday