Composer and bandleader Chuck Owen will celebrate the 30th anniversary of his Jazz Surge with concerts on Sept. 25 and 26 at the New Tampa Performing Arts Center. The performances will highlight Owen’s compositions while embracing the spontaneity of live jazz.
Owen, who served as director of jazz studies at the University of South Florida for 40 years before his retirement in 2021, said he approaches music as a form of storytelling and hopes audiences will be open to the experience.
The performances will feature vocalists incorporated into the band in unusual ways, sometimes using wordless vocals to blend with the instrumental ensemble. Owen said the new approach reflects his continuing interest in experimentation and learning.
The guest lineup will change each night, with Randy Brecker performing Friday and Terri Lyne Carrington and Warren Wolf joining the band Saturday. The concerts will also feature a limited-edition double vinyl LP celebrating the Jazz Surge’s anniversary, with only 100 copies available exclusively at the shows.
In this conversation, Owen talks about the tour and how the band has lasted for this long.
This Friday and Saturday, Sept. 25 and 26, you'll be at the new Tampa Performing Arts Center. Can you walk me through what audiences will expect from this concert?
I hope they come with fairly limited expectations and are just open to where we're going to take them. You know, I consider myself especially with the concept of a storyteller. That's what I want to be, at least. And so I hope they'll allow us to tell the story through music. And in this case, unlike past Surge things, through a lot of lyrics that some of which I've written, some of which are others'.
But I'm just hoping to have fun and relax. To me, there's nothing more that I love than recording albums so that people can listen to it in pristine environments — whether that's with great speaker systems or great headsets or whatever. And I don't know that concerts necessarily equal that in some respects. So as a composer, I'm very aware that I get a chance to really shape that recording the way I want.
When you get 25 people on a stage, and you're dealing with sound issues and things that change and everything, what you get is not that pristine musical environment that, as a composer, I really love. What you do get is the unknown, is the excitement that comes from everybody playing together and especially in jazz and creating on the spot.
What you do get is the joy of people making music together and the ability to somehow follow that storyline in the moment. So I guess that's what I hope they get from it.
I got chills from that.
Oh well, good. I do too. I've been asked in the past, which would you rather do: work in a studio and record your music or play in concerts? For years I said, oh, studio, without a doubt. Because, again, it's just such a composer's environment. You can make sure every little nuance is the way you want it if you can spend the time and money. But with the chance of doing a little more touring and everything, I've really become so appreciative of the opportunity to — and the honor, to be quite honest — of being able to share my music immediately with an audience that then gives back to us too, and that's a pretty heavy experience for me personally.
You're celebrating your 30th anniversary with the Jazz Surge. That's incredible.
That is pretty incredible. There's not a lot of, I won't say, opportunities, but it's a challenge to make anything beyond just a rehearsal band. Last, there's just financially problematic; it's logistically problematic. So I actually had my own publicist ask me that question just nine months ago in suspicion of this project. She just said, "Why, Chuck?" And I didn't really have a great answer other than that's kind of what I do. It's what I love. And I'm fortunate enough to have had opportunities to make it happen.
How do you feel looking back on 30 years?
Old? No, no, I, I shouldn't say that. But, I mean, it's actually hard to believe it's been 30 years in many respects. It has gone far beyond what I ever expected when I first put it together.
1996 was only 10 years ago, right?
Yeah. Well, it a long ago. Shoot, 1976 was like ... When I kind of look back and look at all of the artists we've worked with — think about just the hours of music I've written, which that was never the intention — I look back on it with pride and with joy, particularly for the people that I've gotten a chance to work with and make music with. They continue to inspire me.
And you're working with vocalists for this concert. What's that like?
So we've had vocalists as guest artists, but it's been the traditional thing of a singer comes in, and they're featured with the band, they sing songs, the band backs them and that sort of thing. And we'll have a few moments where the vocalists will be featured kind of out front of the band and singing a song like you would normally expect. But much of the time they're actually wrapped into the band, and they're part of the colors that I get to use. I'm going to guess close to half of the time they're not even singing words. They're they're saying "la's" and "da's" and "boo's" and all that sort of thing just to blend in with an alto flute and a muted trombone or something like that. So it's definitely a learning experience for me, which I love at this point in time in my life. So I think they're all outside of the comfort zone, and I think they're all really looking forward to it.
There's nothing better than being outside your comfort zone.
Exactly. That's exactly right. I mean, that's what I want for myself. That's what I think everybody in the band wants to a certain extent.
It's just not creative. It also seeps into your personal life.
Yeah, I love the idea of exploration and learning. I mean, that's one of the things I loved about being a professor for 40 years was just the joy that comes in learning. It has nothing to do with music versus literature versus geography, politics, whatever. I love encountering new things.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
