This Valentine’s Day, forget the chocolate and roses. Instead, opt for something a little more smooth and a little less stereotypical: jazz.
For the last two years, 24-year-old pianist and composer Joe Alterman has delighted audiences over the weekend of romance with his charming renditions of jazz classics. He returns Saturday, February 13th, to the Academy Art Museum in Easton, for his third Valentine’s Day concert.
Alterman will be joined by jazz vocalist Lena Seikaly, of Washington, D.C. The two performed together for the first time at last year’s show, following a recommendation from Al Sikes, founder and producer of the Monty Alexander Jazz Festival. After a few email exchanges to establish a set list, the two prepared the material separately, and met the day of the show for soundcheck—a pattern they’ll repeat this year.
“I personally like it,” he says. “A lot of times the best stuff happens at the rehearsal, so I’d rather skip the rehearsal and let our best performance happen at the concert.”
Alterman’s foray into music began when, as a five-year-old, he asked his parents for piano lessons. He immediately hated it, he says with a laugh, and by the time he’d hit double digits, his interest had shifted to the guitar. His dad agreed to let him take lessons under the condition he continue with piano lessons. But, eventually, he found his way back to the ivory keys.
“I was playing guitar in a rock band and we hired this piano player and he couldn’t really do anything, so I kept having to show him everything. After a while, I just decided to play the piano and it kind of stuck from that,” he says.
He also credits his fondness for the improvisational genre to his family. As a kid, Alterman’s dad would play blues and jazz recordings in an effort to convince his son to stick with his piano lessons.
“A lot of the music in Georgia is bluegrass and blues music, so a lot of the tunes that are considered jazz standards, I really grew up hearing them at blues festivals and such … they’re just songs I’ve always liked,” he says. “But something about playing jazz—or just improvising and playing around with the melody—is something I really like.”
For jazz intellectuals or those unfamiliar with the genre, Alterman’s take on it might not be what you would expect. For him, jazz isn’t quite so serious. In fact, he believes it should be enjoyed as lightheartedly as it was in the past.
“Jazz was pop music, originally. It was dance music. Then, for some reason, people put chairs in the club and everyone thought they just had to sit there and think about something,” he says, with a chuckle.
And while there are sure to be chairs at his February 13th performance, Alterman insists audience members enjoy some good ol’ foot-tapping and head-bobbing, too. After all, it’s supposed to be fun, he says.
Need convincing? Take a peek into Alterman’s non-jazz-standards repertoire on YouTube, featuring tunes like Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely” and “For Once in My Life,” and The Bee Gee’s “How Deep Is Your Love.”
Still, he doesn’t forget the fundamentals.
“I know there are a lot of jazz fans [in Easton] who like the old standards … I try to pick stuff that will be familiar to them and also stuff that might be a little surprising,” he says. “It’s a mixture of familiar songs and stuff they have forgotten about over the years from composers they already know.”
A Special Valentine: Joe Alterman and Lena Seikaly begins at 8 p.m., Saturday, February 13th, at the Academy Art Museum in Easton. Tickets are $45 and can be purchased online at www.chesapeakejazz.org.
By Becca Newell
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