Jazz violinist's music rooted in community

Lexington native Zach Brock is an internationally acclaimed jazz violinist. Photo by Janis Vogel.

BY WALTER TUNIS
Contributing Music WriterAugust 21, 2014
Inspiration can sprout anywhere. In one especially vivid instance — namely, an original composition on his new Purple Sounds album titled Brooklyn Ballad — Zach Brock discovered it towering from the ground.

The inspiration the internationally-acclaimed, Lexington-born jazz violinist found was something exceedingly precious for any musician working in New York: a tree. Specifically, it was a massive linden tree that grew outside of the one-bedroom apartment Brock and his wife lived in for eight years after relocating from a fruitful jazz scene in Chicago.

"I don't know how old this thing was, but it went up at least eight stories and was just gorgeous," Brock says. "There is so much ugliness in New York all the time that just to have one beautiful tree you can look at out of your window when you're trying to write some music was wonderful. I didn't realize how much it meant to me.

"Then, right before I wrote the song, this is probably in 2010, I came home one day and these guys sent by our landlord came in the front yard of our apartment building and cut the tree down. People lost their minds. I mean, there were people in our building throwing things out their windows at these guys. There were people crying and wringing their hands. I couldn't believe we were all freaking out about a tree, but it was like they came in and took away the most beautiful thing we had. Coming to understand what that meant to myself and this little community I had become part of ... the music kind of came from that place."

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