FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, July 13, 2023

Contact: Doug Cumming, cummingd@wlu.edu 540-570-0293

Second Concert of the “Rick Saylor Memorial Jazz Series”

Thursday, July 25, at First Christian Church of Decatur

A jazz combo that grew from years of “workshopping” at the Grant Park home of bassist Rick Saylor will perform on Thursday, July 25, in the Fellowship Hall of the First Christian Church of Decatur, 601 W. Ponce de Leon Ave., Decatur.

Saylor, a former tour manager for jazz icons Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, died on Aug. 6, at age 70, after suffering a heart attack. He was the host and mentor of a generation of local jazz musicians who would gather at his house every Thursday evening to play from the jazz canon, Bebop to jazz fusion.

As the steady bass player holding it together, Rick Saylor emphasized that these weekly sessions were for the joy of playing jazz and learning from one another, not to “play out.” Honoring his memory, the other musicians decided to continue the weekly sessions and break Rick’s no-performance rule with a first memorial concert last Dec. 6 at the Decatur church.

The group includes Adam Cole, keyboard; Bo Emerson and Dan McGraw, trumpets; John Willingham, guitar; Jordi Lara, bass, and Billy Bryant, drums; Walter Cumming, trombone, and Doug Cumming, tenor saxophone.

Saylor grew up in the San Francisco Bay area during the halcyon days of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s counterculture. He was immersed in the music of the time working in the famed Village Music store in Mill Valley in the Bay Area and playing bass with local bands. He also began doing sound for the Inn of the Beginning, a music venue that brought nationally and internationally recognized musicians to the area. It was there that he was recruited as a tour and sound manager, managing national and international tours for numerous groups and eventually for jazz icons, including Shorter and Hancock.

In the late ‘80s, he moved to New York to co-produce an award-winning jazz documentary series for Masters of American Music that included series on the history of jazz, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday and Thelonious Monk. He also worked for a talent management agency involved promoting the “new” lions of jazz such as Benny Green, Diana Krall, Joshua Redman and Christian McBride.

The church will open at 7 p.m. for the 7:30 p.m. performance. The concert is free. All are welcome to come and bring someone.