Jazz guitar accompanies art opening
Art and music go together like chardonnay and a fine brie. The pairing of jazz guitarist David Newsam with an exhibition by a group of regional painters opening Feb. 7 promises to be equally satisfying. Explore, Express: Painting with Purpose offers works from a New England College class led by Bedford artist Patrick McKay that’s met for the past 15 years.
“Someone like David is ideally suited for this kind of thing,” Rick Lugg, Exhibition Chair at Two Villages Art Society, said recently. “We’re trying to generate traffic, so we want a lot of people in there, and we want something that at least loosely complements the theme or the work of the show.”
Newsam has performed at Two Villages openings before. In a phone interview from his home in Raymond, he said he’ll play jazz standards and American Songbook selections this time.
“In the past, I’ve done a lot of open, free improvisation,” he said, adding, “I feel that a really important element is to try to shape the music to match the vibe of the artists.”
He’ll play solo on acoustic and electric guitar, eschewing the pedals, loops and other sound-scaping tools other musicians often use to augment their sound.
“I think it’s much more of a challenge to be able to do it all live without any kind of effects,” he said, pointing to guitarist Tommy Emmanuel’s approach as an ideal.
“He can present and portray an entire band just by himself, with the mechanics of the instrument,” Newsam explained. “I heard him answer this question once at a clinic, and he just said, ‘I hear the bass, I hear the piano, I hear the vocals, and I just try to play it all.’”
Born in Connecticut, Newsam attended Berklee College of Music and returned later to teach. He also taught at Dartmouth College and at UNH, where he founded their jazz guitar program.
“I always joked that at Berklee I was one of 50 guitar faculty, and at UNH I was the entire guitar program,” he said.
In high school Newsam listened to Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter, and guitar-based bands like the Allman Brothers; then he found jazz at Berklee. During his senior year he spent a lot of time in Hyannis, Mass., while taking care of his grandfather and got even deeper into the genre.
“Cape Cod was really a hotbed of amazing jazz players like Dave McKenna, the pianist, and Lou Colombo, the trumpet player,” he said. “I mean, these were some of the best players in the world, and they all were based in Cape Cod, so I had a ton of opportunities.”
Newsam continues to teach at Berklee and perform as well as occasionally record music. He and sax player Bobby Tynes recently released an instrumental EP, Kindred Souls. It includes a lively rendition of “Fishin’ Hole,” the theme song from 1960s sitcom The Andy Griffith Show, and a scintillating version of “The Very Thought of You.”
The two became friends in 1983.
“I had an opportunity to play a summer job, so I moved up to the Lake Winnipesaukee region,” he said. “Bobby’s uncle had a cabin. We met at a jam session and we’ve been playing music ever since … partners in crime for over four decades.”
The record is their first together. “It’s a collection of things we either did in the studio or did live that Bobby took into his recording studio,” Newsam said. “Some of the recordings are probably 20 years old…. It’s not like we went in as a project and recorded all that in one day.”
The five-track effort is available on streaming services for now.
“It’s really been fun listening to that, reminiscing about the music that we’ve played,” Newsam said. “We really are kindred souls. We don’t play for two or three months and when we get together it feels like we’ve been playing every day. It’s just that kind of relationship.”
Opening reception with guitarist David Newsam
When: Saturday, Feb. 7, noon
Where: Two Villages Art Society, 846 Main St., Contoocook
More: twovillagesart.org
Featured photo: David Newsam. Courtesy photo.