The Michael Feinstein Great American Songbook Initiative’s new exhibit, Blast from the Past: Roaring Hot ‘20s Jazz, is now open.
Large urban jazz powerhouses of the 1920s, including Chicago and New Orleans, were not the only cities dancing to the syncopated rhythms of hot jazz. Indiana musicians heard the new sound and not only played it, but influenced the music for decades to come. Now thanks to the exhibit, guests will be able to discover Indiana’s role in making jazz.
The year-long exhibit, located on the gallery-level of the Palladium at the Center for the Performing Arts, 1 Center Green, Carmel, showcases the work of Hoagy Carmichael, Claude Thornhill, Red Nichols, the Hampton Family Band and many others.
Each of the artists highlighted in the exhibit had a lasting influence on jazz. The exhibit was inspired by a collection donated by Carmel resident Ted Shonfield, with the help of noted jazz photographer Duncan Schiedt.
Schiedt, who is also an author and historian, was born in Atlantic City, N.J., in 1921. He lived in New York and its suburbs from 1936 to 1950, moving to Indiana in 1951. He currently lives in the town of Pittsboro, according to his website.
The combination of two passions, jazz music and photography, led him into a photography career as well as avocation, the photographic coverage of the music he adored. As he puts it, he became “intensely interested” in the new swing music while a student in England during a two-year sojourn there. Upon returning to the United States, he took up photography as a hobby, and was soon finding his subjects at the Times Square movie palaces and their big-band stage shows.
The exhibit is open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and before the concerts in the Songbook and Jazz series.
