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The Nashville Jazz Workshop
Jazz in Nashville?
by Kat Amano
With its in-depth discussions of polyrhythmic syncopation and flatted seventh degrees, with its pretentious image of smoke and pearls and wire-rimmed glasses, with all its allusions to a bygone time of better dress and higher class, jazz can be a daunting thing. It is technically precise, mathematically complex, and intellectually provocative. And it was borne of the fragile dance between community and solitude, bearing the weight of its own past and the fervor of its fans.
On a Friday night between the Cumberland River and the northeastern edge of downtown, a gray industrial complex has one porch light still on. Now in its tenth year, the Nashville Jazz Workshop found its home here in 2000, turning this unlikely setting—which was once part of a slaughterhouse—into the epicentral hangout for the jazz scene in the city. It functions as a school, library, and performance space; but for its friends and students, it has become a sort of haven.
“Jazz is an intellectual kind of music,” says Lori Mechem, who founded the Workshop with her husband, Roger Spencer. “But that’s part of what we’re trying to break down. We want everyone to feel like they can come here to learn and play.”
Mechem began her own jazz education when she was only three years old; by the age of 13, she was playing drums and touring with her father’s big band in Indianapolis.
Pick up a copy of Nashville Arts Magazine to read the rest of this article