by Ann Butler
Neighbors columnist
Attending Jazz on the Hill is one of my favorite things, because it’s my only chance to get on stage at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College.
The event, which had a sell-out crowd of 105 – a record-breaker, because the event has averaged about 80 people over the past five years – seats attendees onstage for dinner and an intimate jazz concert. They had to add three tables, and I think it’s safe to say the fire marshal wouldn’t allow any more.
Fortunately, the seats in the audience are empty, so we’re not eating with people checking our table manners. It’s still cool to be under the stage lights.
Strater Catering and Events prepared a menu of a salad with balsamic vinaigrette, chicken français with white wine-lemon-butter sauce and pan-seared salmon with papaya-mango relish and vegetables, topping it off with peanut butter-chocolate-banana pie.
Joyce Lyons, who makes her home in the Twin Cities, was once again the guest artist. Because so many faces have become familiar to her over the years she’s been coming to this event – and others – she is relaxed and has a lot of fun during her performance of classical jazz. She brought her combo of Phil Aaron on piano, Jay Epstein on drums and Graydon Peterson on bass, and they were joined by FLC students Michael Gutierrez on saxophone and Dawn Turner on violin. Jeff Solon, who works with jazz students in the area, also joined in on his saxophone.
Fort Lewis students benefited by getting to play with a professional jazz group, and through a master class Lyons gave on vocal jazz vocalization. To Lyons, the lyrics matter, and she teaches students to understand and express them.
Money raised at the event benefited the Russ and Bette Serzen Endowment for Concert Hall Operations, and the take brought the endowment up to $170,000. When the community was raising money to build the Concert Hall, people talked about the need to also raise money to support ongoing operations of the hall, a need that has grown more pressing as Fort Lewis deals with shrinking revenues from the state. But it never did, just rested on the laurels of having gotten the Concert Hall built.
After Russ Serzen died, his widow, Bette, decided to do something about that, creating both the fund and Jazz on the Hill, its signature fundraising event in collaboration with, first Gary Penington, then general manager of the hall, and now Charles Leslie, the current general manager, and their staffs.
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