Welcome to Philadelphia Jazz Project
First Friday Rent Party - V. Shayne Frederick
Apr 2, 2016
2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great Migration: The historic period when millions of Black Americans left the South and moved to the Northeast, Midwest and West. This activity changed the country culturally, politically and socially.
PJP is partnering with the Arch Street Meetinghouse, celebrating this milestone with our First Friday Rent Party Series. The Rent Party was an invention of Great Migrationeers who sometimes faced low wages and high rents. Many found themselves having to pull together a plan to pay the rent. The plan was a house party with liquor, food, music and dancing, all with an admission price. The events happened weekly all over America, whereever these transplanted Southerners traveled. Our rent parties will showcase great music by artists like Sam Reed, Tony Jones, V. Shayne Frederick, Lili Anel and Chris Stevens, as well as feature a buffet of foods related to each state curated by Chef Valerie Erwin of Geechee Girl Restaurant.
V. Shayne Frederick is a pianist, vocalist and poet. He began his formal musical study at Dartmouth College, and afterwards with the legendary Philadelphia organist, pianist, composer and vocalist Trudy Pitts. His informal musical study, however, began at birth. V. Shayne was born in North Carolina to musician parents, his mother, a pianist and vocalist, and his father, a saxophonist. As a self-taught pianist and vocalist, his craft has been honed at jam sessions, bandstands, concert halls, and behind pianos at a multitude of venues over the last decade including: Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Barnes Foundation, SugarHouse Casino, Suzanne Roberts Theatre, Resorts Casino, Society Hill Playhouse, Philadelphia Clef Club for Performing Arts, the African-American Museum in Philadelphia, and Art Sanctuary. Positioned to be one of the premiere jazz vocalists of Philadelphia, V. Shayne has a melodic classic sound with a contemporary and creative personal touch.
Visit V. Shayne Frederick's' website HERE. Follow him on Twitter or Instagram at @Invincewil. For performances reach out to: Booking Contact
Pianist and vocalist V. Shayne Frederick, will be our next featured artist celebrating the North Carolina for the First Friday Rent Party Series at the Arch Street Meeting House.
First Friday Rent Party Series
May 6th, 2016 - 7PM | V. Shayne Frederick | Celebrating North Carolina
Arch Street Meeting House
320 Arch St, Philadelphia, PA 19106
Tickets for these special events are only $25 per party.
Entrance to all 5 parties, (if purchased by March 25), is just $100!
Free parking available - first come, first served.
Click Here To Purchase Tickets
PJP spoke with him about his music and his approach.
PJP: Can you briefly describe your musical direction
V. Shayne Frederick: I am concerned with the total program of music: the connections among subject matter, interpretation, and delivery. If it doesn't flow, it ain't free.
PJP: What and whom are pivotal musical influences on your creative approach?
V. Shayne Frederick: I owe my creative approach to music to visual art, film and literature as much as I do to music itself. How can we make this experience a moment? How can we make this moment an artifact? How can we make this artifact relevant and vibrant?
PJP: What’s so important about this project?
V. Shayne Frederick: North Carolina is the home of a huge cache of American black people, including some preeminent Jazz figures. Although Jazz was and is historically considered to be a necessarily "urban" music, the stories of many of those people originated in swamplands, dirt roads, wood shacks and farmland. The Great Migration brought that black culture (music, fashion, sensibility, sentimentality) to urban centers that allowed Jazz to flourish and develop in interesting ways. Jazz wouldn't be Jazz if it just stayed where and like it was. It is a traveling music, a living music-- like language itself. Music and language have breaths of their own.
PJP: How do you manage the task of creating and encouraging fresh, new, forwarding moving musical ideas, while simultaneously exploring, celebrating and documenting the past?
V. Shayne Frederick: I believe that if you are true to the spirit of the composition and where it resonates within you, it lives again. Just like repeating a name invokes the presence of the person, engaging the music also engages the vision and culture of the people who created the music. Music does not exist without a cultural context. We are simply on a continuum of sound.
PJP: When listening to your music, what advice would you give to audiences to assist with greater understanding and enjoyment?
V. Shayne Frederick: Just listen for the story. Everything I do is about the story of the song, which, to me, is the lifeblood of music.
PJP: Why Jazz? When you could be doing anything else, why Jazz?
V. Shayne Frederick: I enjoy that freedom and the depth that Jazz affords me. When words fail, improvisation extends the line a little first. The only limitation in Jazz is the unwillingness or inability of the musician to improvise. Everything is new, every time. I love that about Jazz.
First Friday Rent Party Series
April 1, 2016 - 7PM | Christopher Stevens
Arch Street Meeting House
320 Arch Street, Phila., PA 19106
Tickets for these special events are only $25 per party.
Entrance to all 5 parties, (if purchased by March 25), is just $100!
Free parking available - first come, first served.
Click Here To Purchase Tickets
See you at the Rent Parties!
First Friday Rent Party Series produced by Philadelphia Jazz Project in collaboration with Arch Street Meetinghouse.
Philadelphia Jazz Project is a sponsored project of the CultureWorks Greater Philadelphia, with funding provided by The Wyncote Foundation.
