The idea of a Bridgeport Jazz Expo has been in the works for some time. It’s finally show time. Wrapping up Bridgeport Restaurant Week is a weekend of all-inclusive night of jazz – featuring several artists, two with big names.

 

Here’s all it all plays out: Starting Monday, Meagher's Irish Pub, Mia Margherita, Provence Market and the Wonder Bar Steakhouse will offer live jazz during dining hours. (See hours and music line-up below). Those restaurants, as well as Brickside Bar & Grill, Mountaineer Grille and Oliverio’s Ristorante, will also offer the “3 Courses for $30” special – the menu featuring some locally grown and/or raised ingredients. Then on Friday evening, the “Jazz Expo” kicks in at Provence Market, The Veranda at Via Veneto and Brickside Bar & Grill. Headlining artists Jean Nowell of New York City and Paul Tynan of Nova Scotia will deliver their respective sax and trumpet talents at all three venues. (See that schedule below also). The Jazz Expo continues into Saturday with Nowell and Tynan join forces as the NYC/Stockholm Jazz Collective play Brickside Bar & Grill. It all winds up Sunday at Bridgeport Farmers Market with the annual Country Roads Cook-Off. This year, the culinary competition will feature a side of jazz.

 

The series of events has required much coordination and is a collaborative effort between Bridgeport Arts Council, Bridgeport Farmers Market and the West Virginia Jazz Society.

 

“I think - and I fervently hope - that we are succeeding in our mission, which is to identify and develop a market for live jazz music in West Virginia,” said Bob Workman, co-organizer. 

 

The success of various “Jazz at Charles Pointe” wintertime events is an indicator that the summer series will be well received – and organizers sure hope that is true, Workman said.

 

“In addition, the success we’ve had with the Jazz Stroll events in both Weston and Clarksburg have had us looking for other towns where the concept might work,” he said “Even though the venues are a bit spread out in Bridgeport - which is why we aren’t using the term ‘Jazz Stroll,’ we felt a multi-venue jazz ‘Expo’ would go over well with the Bridgeport audience.”

 

It is hoped that not only city residents and restaurant regulars will participate, but also out-of-towners who have attended Winter Jazz Weekends in the past, Workman said.

 

“We’re talking folks from around the four state region of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Ohio,” he said.

 

Jazz is a genre very different from others; perhaps one for which listeners sometimes develop an acquired taste.

 

“Everyone these days wants to download the latest fluff from the pop star of the minute and jazz just doesn’t work that way,” Workman said. “Jazz is spontaneous, improvisational, and largely instrumental - things which aren’t ‘fashionable in today’s pre-packaged, auto-tuned music industry.”

 

Workman said he believes the folks who have attended and supported local jazz events over past years have discovered what jazz enthusiasts have known all along.

 

“And that is this:  Jazz is America’s one true original art form and our artistic gift to the world,” he said. “Ask the guys from Sweden or check out the jazz scene in Japan or France or Italy. In many of those countries, the great American jazz musicians, who the majority of Americans have never heard of, are treated like rock stars.”

 

Editor's Note: Pictured from top are Nowell and Tynan