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• The bebop bug: CU jazz then and now

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Jazz’s uncanny ability to attract a wide audience eager to experience the music’s pure emotion is evident throughout the CU community, from the University’s own prolific jazz studies department to the weekly regulars at Zorba’s Thursday jazz nights to the cozy stage at Urbana’s Iron Post. However, little do the younger jazz fans know of the lively history of this compelling genre within the 217. No fear, buzz is here to give you a peek at where the “bebop bug” caught on in CU’s decades past.

Jazz Threads (found at http://www.40north.org/jazzthreads/home/index.html) is a jazz-based artist residency project that credits Cecil Bridgewater as the organization’s “ideal artist/ambassador.” The project’s Web site describes its choice: “Born and raised in Champaign-Urbana, Cecil now lives in the jazz mecca of the world, New York City, where he is recognized as a successful jazz trumpeter, music educator, arranger and composer.”

Numerous CU native jazz players have made it big like Bridgewater, earning national acclaim and bringing prestigious awards back to their hometown.

Providing a detailed then-and-now list of popular jazz venues, Jazz Threads includes Mabel’s Bar and Nature’s Table as integral to the genre’s area growth. According to trumpeter/arranger Thomas “Shab” Wirtel, Mabel’s was a “heavy jazz house.” So steeped was Mabel’s in the jazz tradition, that the venue even hosted the Grammy-award-winning Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra.

Another CU jazz venue of historical significance is Nature’s Table, which radio host Jeff Machota lauds for allowing “musicians ... [to] play what they wanted ... to experiment.”

Not surprisingly, the former owners of Nature’s Table, Shelley Masar and husband, Terry, host a “Sounds Like Home” jazz program on local alternative radio WEFT 90.1, during which the couple honors the “UI/Table lineage.”