Violinist Zach Brock Jazzes up City Hall

Violinist Zach Brock

   I would like to have heard it to completion, but what I did hear -- the first 45 minutes or so -- I will not soon forget.

   Violinist Zach Brock is a musician of prodigious ability and keen artistic insight.  You might call him the Joshua Bell of the jazz violin.

   Performing with his band Arrival/Departure, the handsome twentysomething wowed a small crowd of listeners on the second “Mayor’s 801 Plum Concert” of the season.

   Brock's program comprised his own music, plus (I was told) a few tunes by Polish jazz violinist Zbigniew Seifert and a standard or two for good measure.  He played on an 1896 Leandro Bisiach violin ( Milan, Italy) with electronic pickup by Eric Aceto of Ithaca, New York and a DPA microphone.  His fellow bandsmen were guitarist Nate Radley, upright bassist Mat Wigton and drummer Frederick Kennedy.

   I heard Brock’s “Resisting the Beast" and "Mr. Shaw" in two extended and engrossing sets before leaving to fulfill another obligation.  The first, which began with a rumble in the bass, set a lyrical tone with parallel harmonies in violin and guitar before moving into the “beat” and an impressive solo by Radley. Brock whipped up and down the violin nailing high notes with pinpoint accuracy before ending on a soft, syncopated pizzicato.

   “Mr. Shaw" was very violinistic (in the classical sense), sounding a bit like an etude or a cadenza at first, with substantial double stopping, obsessive rhythms and some very high passages on the instrument.  Bowed arpeggios across the strings recalled Arvo Pärt's "Fratres" (for violin and piano) and it ended with some subtle effects by brushed cymbal and double bass.

   A native of Lexington, Kentucky, Brock grew up steeped in classical and folk music, but “jazz was always in the rotation,” he said.  His choice of jazz grew out of a love for improvisation, begun when he started playing in the family band (his parents Jenny and Dan Brock of Lexington are both jazz musicians).

   Brock studied classical violin at Northwestern University.  He heard Stefan Grappelli and was "intrigued."  After discovering Jean-Luc Ponty, Sonny Rollins and Clifford Brown, he was "hooked, Miles Davis and John Coltrane were next," he said.

   He came to international attention with his first band The Coffee Achievers with whom he made three well-received recordings and a DVD "Live at the Jazz Factory."  He has collaborated with such artists as bassist Stanley Clarke, vocalist/pianist Patricia Barber and drummer Dennis Chambers  He is currently involved in a documentary film about Seifert, whom Brock calls “the genius of modern jazz violin” ("Passion" produced and directed by Erin Harper).  Seifert, who was heavily influenced by John Coltrane, died of cancer in 1977 at age 32 and is virtually unknown (for information about Seifert and the film, see www.passion-themovie.com).

   The last time Brock played in Cincinnati, he said, was at the Blue Wisp with Phil DeGregg.  His parents bought his first "good violin" at the Bass Viol Shop in Over-the-Rhine.  "I still have it.  It's a French violin from Mirecourt attributed to Jean Baptiste Colin, 1894."  Visit Brock at his web site www.zachbrock.com. 

   Since they resumed in 2007, the "Mayor's 801 Plum Concerts," a sub-series of Cincinnati’s distinguished Linton Chamber Music Series, has comprised two concerts each year, both in late spring.  And what barrier-breakers they have been.  Aimed squarely at 21-40 year-olds, the 7 p.m. Friday concerts feature diverse, wide-ranging programs blending classical music, jazz, percussion, pop, rock, Latin and hip hop.  Evenings begin with a catered “happy hour” at 5:30 p.m.

   The sensational hip hop duo Black Violin and members of the famed Morales-Matos family of Puerto Rico performed on the 2007 series. Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra violinist Eric Bates, cellist Ted Nelson and double bassist Owen Lee opened the 2008 series in April as the alt rock band Toe, with Bates on guitar, Nelson on bass, Lee on rock drums and Bates and Nelson on vocals.

   Information at www.lintonmusic.org.