Trey Wright’s Jazz at the Strand series provides insight into jazz for both beginners and seasoned enthusiasts. (Photo by Keith Taylor)
The Kennesaw State University lecturer and guitarist hosts a monthly series at the Strand Theatre in Marietta.
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It’s rare to encounter teachers so passionate about the topics they teach that they not only deepen their students’ knowledge but also strive to transform their lives. Trey Wright is such a teacher, and, in addition to his role as principal lecturer of jazz guitar and jazz at Kennesaw State University’s Bailey School of Music, he gives guitar lessons, publishes articles in jazz magazines, regularly performs solo and with others and writes his own music. As if that’s not enough, he also hosts a monthly series of jazz lectures as part of the Jazz at the Strand Series at the Earl and Rachel Smith Strand Theatre in Marietta.
Until a few special teachers came his way, Wright never imagined that he would make a career of jazz music. A high school teacher introduced him to jazz guitar, but he didn’t think of it as much more than a fun pastime at that point. When it was time for college, he decided to major in sociology.
Once at the University of Georgia, however, he found himself feeling aimless and downhearted until a friend encouraged him to audition for the university jazz band. It was there that he met Steve Dancz, then the director of the Jazz Studies program. “He became a huge mentor in my life, even to this day, and is the one responsible for giving me the bug,” says Wright. “Seeing this music through his eyes, as he was teaching it to us, and seeing the impact and passion that he had for it made a huge difference to me.”
Because of Dancz, Wright says, he found his love of jazz music, but it wasn’t until a close call with carbon monoxide poisoning that he realized it was his life’s calling. He dropped out of his sociology studies and hit the road with his band. “I jokingly call myself the ‘accidental musician’ because it felt like a force sort of pulling me along,” he says.
His outgoing personality and high energy level make it hard to believe that Wright once suffered from shyness so extreme that it was excruciating to speak into a microphone. Nevertheless, he longed to communicate spontaneously and freely and found that he could do so nonverbally through his music. “The elements of exploration and improvisation in jazz music became my way to expressing myself,” he says.
Wright continued to learn, this time from recordings by other jazz musicians. When he heard Brad Mehldau’s cover of Nick Drake’s “River Man,” for example, he learned to make even the space between notes intentional and realized that covering a song was not just a matter of copying it. “You want to somehow speak to the inner truth of whatever the song is and what it means to you and how you can communicate it through your musical voice. That’s what fascinates me about all music,” he says.
The audience is an important part of the communication experience, Wright claims, and there’s no substitute for the dynamic between the audience and the band in a live jazz performance. The interaction between the two allows listeners to enjoy the same freedom of self-expression as the band members — and the band members to respond to that in turn, he explains. “There’s something about being exposed to other people interacting and being spontaneous and authentic. It’s a really beautiful thing,” he says.
Wright’s goal is to help make jazz music accessible, relevant and emotionally resonant to everyone. The understanding of even a little jazz history and how the music works enhances the listeners’ experience, he notes, by creating a “door” to enter that helps them appreciate the music more deeply.
Wright realized that to teach the “jazz curious” public at The Strand, he needed a different instructional approach than what he uses with his college students. “I really try to bring it to life versus making it more academic,” he says, “I want it to be fun. And I wanted it to be the kind of thing where people leave with a new appreciation for this amazing, incredible art form.” To that end, he tells stories about the songs and musicians and demonstrates concepts with the guitar and piano while he lectures. There is time at the end for audience questions.
The approach must be working, because the spring lectures were so successful that The Strand is now offering two shows per topic — one at 7:30 p.m. and one at 9 p.m. “I think people are hungry for something authentic right now, and I think jazz really offers that,” Wright explains. “I think that’s one of the reasons the Jazz at the Strand Series has been so successful.”
Topics this fall include “What A Wonderful World: The Genius of Louis Armstrong” (August 21); “Got My Mojo Workin’: An Introduction to Blues Styles and Techniques” (September 18); “Django Reinhardt and the Hot Club de France” (October 16); and “Hard Bop and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers” (November 6).
In his lectures, Wright hopes to emulate the qualities of the exceptional teachers who taught him not only his craft but also who he was. Learning about jazz is about more than just gaining an appreciation for it, he explains; it’s about internalizing the freedom of self-expression. He hopes that his audiences will come away with both. “Jazz is this high-wire act of communicating your story or your path or your life journey. That can really speak to people, you know?”
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Shannon Marie Tovey is a freelance music journalist and educator who covers the jazz, blues and rock scene.
