Sax man Rick Metz hosts two weekly nights of local jazz: Wednesday
nights at the Firkin & Fox, 310 Carson St., Carson City, and
Thursday nights at Sidelines Bar & Nightclub, 1237 Baring Blvd.,
Sparks. Though there will be no Thursday night performance on Nov. 26
because of Thanksgiving, Metz and his band, First Take, will appear at
Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen, 1180 Scheels Drive, Sparks, on Friday, Nov.
27 and Saturday, Nov. 28. For more information, visit www.rickmetz.com
Is it pretty much the same line-up for both
nightly shows?
No, both nights have different bands. That’s the fun thing
about doing jazz around the area, is the fact that there’s so
many great musicians, and everybody’s working so much that my
band isn’t necessarily the same band from night to night.
It’s a constantly changing mix of the area’s finest
players. I have two different vocalists that I feature on each of those
nights.
Tell me a little about them.
One of my vocalists has been around town for quite a long time.
… Her name is Latisha Lewis, and she’s been working around
this town for quite a long time, doing all styles of music, including
everything from rock ’n’ roll and blues to jazz. And her
voice is a cross between Billie Holiday and the great Nancy Wilson.
She’s more like a ’50s torch singer, I guess you could call
it.
And then my male vocalist is a gentleman by the name of Marsh
Brodeur. And Marsh has been in town for about three, four years now. He
moved out from back in the Massachusetts, Connecticut area, and his
voice style—he’s a scat singer in the style of Mel Torme
and Eddie Jefferson. …
Do you prefer doing vocal jazz over
instrumental jazz?
Oh, most assuredly. The instrumental jazz scene is such that most of
the regular listening audience out there is not quite as tuned into
instrumental jazz as they could be—as I’d like them to be,
I should say—because it’s a little bit over a lot of
people’s heads. … People are more inclined to connect
better with a vocalist who’s singing a song that they recognize,
even if it’s not from the contemporary book, they recognize these
songs having heard them over the course of their lives through either
their parents, or on TV. There’s a lot of great jazz out there.
There’s been a big resurgence of jazz among a lot of the great
contemporary artists that have done jazz albums, most notably Rod
Stewart’s Great American Songbook, Queen Latifah, Boz
Scaggs, all these guys have done great jazz albums, and the general
listening public is getting more acclimated to hearing vocal jazz.
That’s what sets us apart from every other group in town.
We’re not doing instrumental jazz that’s going over their
heads, we’re doing vocal jazz that’s geared right at
them—that they can recognize and tune into, and feel part of.
Do you feel like overall the jazz scene in
the area is on an upswing?
Oh, definitely. The whole jazz scene in the area is on a major
upswing right now, and the whole jazz swing around the world is
definitely getting a major revival over the last five, 10 years.
There’s been quite a renewed interest.
Why do you think that is?
I’ve got to go back, of course, to Rod Stewart’s
Great American Songbook volumes. He had three, four volumes of
the greatest jazz tunes ever written. Even though a lot of people are
not Rod Stewart fans … to what he did with the jazz stuff, it’s
still bringing it to the major listening public that has no conception
of jazz, and it’s making it more accessible …
So you would attribute the resurgence in
interest in jazz almost single-handedly to Rod Stewart?
No, no, no, no. I’m just using that as an example.
There’s been a lot of major, major top 40 artists over the last
10 years who have delved into the jazz scene.