Arts

A fresh look at a jazz legend

Proteges and colleagues of guitarist Attila Zoller perform his work at Vermont Jazz Center

BRATTLEBORO — The Vermont Jazz Center celebrates its own legacy this Saturday.

An all-star quintet will interpret original music composed by the center's founder, Attila Zoller, on April 21 at 8 p.m. This is the first concert in the VJC's 35 years that will focus on the original compositions of its founder, who died in 1998.

The musicians performing include Don Friedman on piano, Draa Hobbs and Mitch Seidman on guitar, Ron McClure on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums.

“Although every year we have a tribute concert for Attila Zoller at the Center, this one is very special,” said VJC Executive Artistic Director Eugene Uman. “For the first time we are presenting a concert completely dedicated to Attila's own music.”

Uman said all the musicians performing knew Zoller. Friedman, McClure and Zigmund were musical colleagues who played with Zoller many times, and Hobbs and Seidman were his students.

“These men have no cursory relation to Attila,” said Uman.

“This is especially true of Draa Hobbs, who is artistic director of the concert,” Uman said.

“Draa was one of Attila's first students at the Vermont Jazz Center,” he added. “They were virtually inseparable until Zoller died in 1998.”

Zoller was an archetypal European jazz musician of the 20th century. Born in Visegrád, Hungary, in 1927, he was taught classical violin by his father, who was a professional violinist. After studying a series of musical instruments, the teenage Attila finally settled on the guitar as his instrument of choice. He also eschewed classical music to focus on jazz.

Zoller quit school during the Russian occupation of Hungary following World War II and began playing professionally in Budapest jazz clubs. He escaped Hungary in 1948 just before the permanent Soviet blockade of the country, and moved to Vienna.

Zoller left Austria for Germany in 1954, where he lived until jazz musicians Oscar Pettiford and Lee Konitz urged him to move to the United States, which he did in 1959. Here, Zoller played in drummer Chico Hamilton's group in 1960, with clarinetist Benny Goodman and flautist Herbie Mann from 1962-1965. In 1965, he began leading a free-jazz influenced group with the pianist Don Friedman, and in 1968 co-led a group with Konitz on alto saxiphone and Albert Mangelsdorff on trombone.

As Uman put it: “Attila Zoller was a jazz legend.”

Hobbs agreed, but called it ironic that praise for his former teacher is too often about how under-appreciated he is.

“He was the recipient of DownBeat magazine's Talent Deserving [Wider] Recognition [Award],” he added.

“In a recent JazzTimes article, one of the most respected magazines about jazz, Attila was listed as one of the 10 most underrated jazz guitarist of all times,” Hobbs said.

“He was near the very top of the list.”

Not that Hobbs is complaining: “I was so happy to see Attila listed because he really deserved it.”

Zoller founded the Vermont Jazz Center at his country home in 1976. He taught at the National Jazz Camps in the 1960s, then founded the Attila Zoller Jazz Clinics in 1974. Working as administrator and teacher, he organized workshops in his second home on Wiswall Hill until incorporating as the Vermont Jazz Center in 1985.

As artistic director of the VJC, he brought together international jazz artists and educators with young professionals and talented amateurs from the U.S. and Europe for intensive study and performance each summer.

Zoller kept an apartment in New York City, but he had made his second home in Vermont. “I think the area reminded him of rural Hungary,” Uman said. “He loved the mountains. He would come up here from New York City to ski and find some harmony with the Vermont forests.”

“He bought land in Newfane and built his own house,” Uman added. “It was a very physical house. Attila was what you would call a 'manly man.'”

Uman said it wasn't long before Zoller began inviting his buddies up for the weekend and later began bringing up students as a way to finance his life in Vermont.

“It became a casual weekend of music and food,” Uman said. “Attila was a great cook. On any given weekend, you could find friends all over the house. They would bunk in all his bedrooms and join together at the large table he had in his kitchen.”

“For the first few years, he ran the Vermont Jazz Center out of his home,” Hobbs said. “VJC is in fact how he lost his beloved place. He really didn't have the mindset for organizational details. He borrowed money against his house to support the center. He worked to bring jazz to southern Vermont but he found Vermont a hard sell.”

As the musical director for the upcoming tribute to his mentor, Hobbs said he found an opportunity to present Zoller's compositions.

“It will be a focused concert dedicated to Attila's own music which deserves to be heard,” Hobbs said, adding that he chose the program for this concert, “taking great care to present the best tribute possible.”

Attila's daughter, Alicia Zoller Carusona, presented Hobbs with a box a foot thick with the entire legacy of her father's written compositions. In it, Hobbs said he found “true jaw-dropping discoveries.” After thoroughly studying the hand-written manuscripts, he chose instrumental sets that featured different configurations of musicians: from solo guitar and piano trio to a full quintet.

Hobbs said the program is “as close to a retrospective of Zoller's compositions as I can create.” The concert includes selections from his first recordings (The Birds and the Bees from the album Gypsy Cry) to his last (Joy for Joy, Meant to Be, and Homage to O.P. from the LP, When It's Time). The quintet will perform Motion, written by Jimmy Raney, who Hobbs called Zoller's “soul brother,” and Alicia's Lullaby, named for his daughter. Also on the playlist are several of Zoller's lesser-known works such as Struwwelpeter.

“Attila was a tremendously giving and generous man,” said Hobbs.

“He would go to great lengths to expose you to his world. He was certainly passionate about his art,” he added. “He lived and breathed music, jazz in particular.”

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