On April 15, 2025, the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra will celebrate a quarter century with its Silver Anniversary Concert. Vance Thompson, the orchestra’s Executive Director, recently reflected on the organization’s 25-year journey. Thompson, a native of East Tennessee, attended the University of Tennessee in the late ’80s and early ’90s, where he pursued undergraduate music studies. Afterward, he moved to Chicago to earn a master’s degree at DePaul University.
During his four years in Chicago, Thompson developed a passion for performing with and composing for big bands. DePaul’s student Big Band, which frequently invited guest artists, served as an inspiration for the KJO. Returning to Knoxville in 1999, Thompson brought with him a vision for Big Band jazz in the city. Thompson missed playing when he and his wife settled back in Knoxville.
As he formed the KJO, Thompson’s thought was, “we’ll get [a] band together and see what happens. You know, we’ll have a rehearsal. I’ve got some charts and…some arrangements and we’ll play them and, and see how it goes. It kind of started as almost like a garage band that plays big band jazz.” Starting off with shows in any space they could find in the early years, they landed at the Fairbanks Roasting Room (607 Market St), later the site of the recently closed Lunchbox. Over 100 people paid the $5 cover for the show, Thompson recalled. Alto saxophonist David King, a founding member of the band, said that the now-defunct Fairbanks was one of the best clubs in which he ever played jazz.
Early Lessons
Thompson shared a story about their first guest performer, jazz legend Monty Alexander. The Fairbanks had a house piano of which they were proud, and Thompson brought Alexander to the site at 9:30 the night before the concert to try it out. It didn’t go as planned. Thompson said, “[Monty] turns around, and it’s obvious from his face that, like, what have I gotten myself into? This piano’s a hunk of crap.”
Thompson called Bill Jones Music, Knoxville’s only piano rental company at the time, the morning of the concert. After several calls and lots of pleading, they agreed to rent him a piano if he could tune and deliver it. He called a friend, who arrived with a Steinway Grand strapped to the bed of his truck. The piano was tuned, and the show went on.
That early lesson wasn’t Thompson’s only one. In 2000, the group traveled to perform jazz festivals in Europe, a trip costing $150,000. Thompson credited it with both the KJO’s growth and his ability to manage its business side. Starting in Paris, they performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and in San Sebastian, Spain. A retired UT professor, who heard them at the Fairbanks, had a second home in Ezcaray, Spain, and connected them with the local Jazz Festival. Thompson said that trip gave the members a sense of ownership, as they all raised funds for travel and accommodations.
The Knoxville Jazz Orchestra has grown and changed considerably since those days, but their core mission remains the same: bring great jazz music to Knoxville and surrounding areas.
Growth for the KJO
The KJO began to play at larger venues and currently does around 10 concerts per year, both locally and regionally. The Bijou, with its fantastic acoustics, is one of their most “comfortable spaces.” A Swingin’ Christmas, their holiday concert, sells out the Tennessee Theatre each year. The band started offering a season ticket in 2006. They perform free concerts at Jazz on the Square on Tuesday evenings in the summer and partner with East Tennessee PBS to produce Live at Lucille’s, a television program showcasing live jazz here in Knoxville.
Guest Performers
When reflecting on the Monty Alexander incident, Thompson told me one of the lessons was, “if you’re going to bring in serious artists…there are certain technical requirements that have to be met.” Since then, the KJO has prepared for and featured numerous, high-caliber artists from around the world. Names like Hank Jones, James Moody, Maceo Parker have all played as visiting artists.
Anat Cohen is one of those world-class artists that the KJO recently brought to Knoxville. Cohen played a concert with the KJO on March 4 and just ten days later headlined three shows at the Lincoln Center in New York. She has won numerous awards and has been nominated for three Grammys. I asked Cohen about what drew her to jazz during an evening practice the night before the Knoxville show.
Cohen told me that “The music of New Orleans is the first jazz I ever played. Yeah. I fell in love with the way it feels. I fell in love with the polyphony of it. I fell in love with the swing feel. And I fell in love with the joy it gave me and seemed to give all the other musicians and all the other people.” She added that, for some, physical movement to jazz is not cool. But she loves to move as the music moves her emotionally. Her animated playing style demonstrated that love.
Cohen added, “it’s not easy for a whole big band to just, with like two hours rehearsal, play the music of Brazilian Choro by Pixinguinha and…to play Benny Goodman and Mel Powell arrangements, and to go between. Each song makes the orchestra sound different and creates a whole different atmosphere. [The KJO] did a great job preparing for the concert because it’s a lot of hats to wear for each one of them. It…switches very rapidly between the set.”
The March 4 concert took guests on a musical journey around the world. Cohen did many of the arrangements and wrote some of the songs. Cohen customized one of her favorite songs “Ima”, which means mother in Hebrew, for the concert. The audience was fired up during “Oh, Baby,” featuring several soloists from the KJO, and the “Tiger Rag.” Cohen surprised the audience with a duet, partnering with her husband Marcello Gonçalves, also a world-renowned artist. Cohen wrote one of their songs about waiting for her niece to be born. She added that her niece was now 19, but “music is forever, right?” Their set finished with a fantastic arrangement of West Side Story’s “America” to thunderous applause.
KJO practices are held in the late evening, and I was able to hang out and capture one of their rehearsals.
Jazz for the Next Generation
When asked about the state of jazz, Cohen said “It’s the evolution of this music…the young people playing it are super dedicated, and they create sounds. Maybe the older generation will say, ‘well that’s not jazz’.” She added that “the state of jazz is in good hands. There’s like amazing young musicians playing and creating, you know, and the music is vibrant and it’s influenced by all the madness that is happening in the world. Thank God that we have this music that can be instrumental and include improvisation and interaction.”
The KJO is passing along their love of jazz to a new generation through KJO-funded programs like the Knoxville Jazz Youth Orchestra, a high school big band. Thompson told me that they “meet throughout the school year and do a number of different performances.” The companion program, also funded by the KJO, is the Knoxville Jazz Workshop, which meets on Saturday mornings throughout the school year and teaches the building blocks of jazz improvisation. Students play and learn in small groups.
The KJO charges a small fee for the workshop, which gives students access to seven paid instructors. The Knoxville Jazz Youth Orchestra and the KJO Middle School Band have just one director. The workshop meets at Knox Music Studios, the youth orchestra at The Joy of Music School, and the middle school band at West Valley Middle.
Setting a Foundation for the Future
The band still has 17 members, the same as the original. Thompson mentioned that some founding members only retired last year, and he aimed to lay a foundation for the next iteration, even after his time. The band now includes a few younger members, including one from the UT Jazz Ensemble.
Within the last 18 months, the KJO has hired paid administrative staff to keep the business going. Thompson related, “I mean, honestly, what I’m trying to do now is to get the behind-the-scenes administrative work doled out in a way so that when it’s time for me to move on, whether that’s because I’m going six feet under or I’ve retired, the whole organization can continue to move forward and thrive.”
He also said that he “wants the band to play really good music on a high level. I want the organization to continue to play a role in bringing up the overall level of music education that’s offered in our area. And I feel like just having the youth jazz orchestra and the KJO middle school band that has done a lot for younger and younger kids. In the workshop, when you start learning about jazz when you’re in middle school. By the time you’re a senior in high school, you have the opportunity to be pretty good.”
The Silver Anniversary Concert
On April 15, the KJO will celebrate 25 years with a Silver Anniversary Concert. I asked Thompson what we can expect. Thompson said that “I’m going to feature…the guys in the band who’ve been in the band since the beginning.” Though the band is paid now, they were volunteers at the start. Thompson added, “they’ve all invested a lot in making this work and making it happen. And so I want to honor that by making sure that we do a concert that really celebrates and highlights them.”
The KJO will also highlight other people in the community local to Knoxville who have supported them over the years but don’t play with the band. Tickets are available at the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra’s Silver Anniversary Event page. As of this writing, limited tickets are available for this very special concert.