Jazz legend Byard's music eyed at WPI

The Yard Byard: The Jaki Byard Project performs April 13 at WPI as part of a symposium on the life and music of Jaki Byard. (T&G Staff/BETTY JENEWIN)

By Peter Landsdowne TELEGRAM & GAZETTE REVIEWER
WORCESTER — Don't look now, but April is Jazz Appreciation Month. Worcester Polytechnic Institute celebrated in style with the WPI Jazz Weekend, a series of workshops and concerts that culminated last Sunday in "The Life and Music of Jaki Byard," a symposium and concert dedicated to the late jazz pianist and educator, held in WPI's Alden Memorial Hall. 

A proclamation from Mayor Joseph M. Petty's office declared April 13 as Jaki Byard Day in the city of Worcester. 

Born John Arthur Byard in Worcester on June 15, 1922, the pianist was nicknamed "Jaki" and was a major player on the Worcester jazz scene by the time he was in his teens. 

As a young man, he left Worcester for Boston, where he quickly became part of that city's jazz scene. 

After a stint with Maynard Ferguson's big band, Byard joined the band of iconoclastic bassist Charles Mingus and also recorded extensively in a variety of styles ranging from solo piano to big band, becoming a fixture on the New York jazz scene in the process. 

Byard's contribution to music education was highlighted during a live set by Yard Byard: The Jaki Byard Project (Jamie Baum, flutes; Adam Kolker, tenor saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet; Jerome Harris, guitar; Jay Anderson, acoustic bass; George Schuller, drums). Baum, Harris and Schuller all studied with Byard, who began teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music in 1969. 

The group gets its name from the Byard composition "Inch By Inch, Yard Byard," Byard's play on his last name. In performance, the composition was a stop-and-go bop tune at a fast tempo before morphing into a riffing blues.

Kolker arranged "Aluminum Baby," arguably Bayard's best-known composition. The Boston-based Herb Pomeroy big band, of which Byard was a member (on saxophone!), recorded the tune in the mid-1950s on Pomeroy's Life Is A Many Splendored Gig album on the Roulette label. 
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