The myth, says Maitland Jones, Jr., is that the jazz scene in New York is dying — or dead. And nothing, he says, could be further from the truth.
Jones would know. These days, the noted Princeton University chemistry professor emeritus teaches three days a week at New York University. Though he lives the majority of the time with his wife, artist Susan Hockaday, in their Pennington home, Tuesdays through Thursdays he stays at an apartment near the corner of Bleecker and Mercer Streets in New York that he rents from NYU.
In the evenings, he frequents Manhattan’s legendary jazz clubs: among them The Village Vanguard, the Blue Note and Birdland.
“If you could drop me anywhere in the world that would put me at the center of where I’d want to be, that’s it,” he said. “I can walk to 10 places where I can hear the best musicians in the world play.”
But Jones doesn’t always have to commute to the city for that privilege. Every so often, he can sit in his Pennington home and wait for a jazz musician or five to knock on his front door. On some nights, the jazz clubs come to him.
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Fourteen years ago, Jones co-founded JazzNights with Mary Wisnovsky. The long-time Princeton neighbors and friends share a love of jazz that began for both in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, and in 2002, they decided it might be fun and enlightening to start up a concert series of their own.
One night, they went to see pianist Bill Charlap and bassist Sean Smith play at a club in New York. Between sets, they approached the musicians and asked if they’d come to Princeton to perform. Charlap and Smith agreed to do it. The venue for the first concert, held Sept. 21, 2002, was the home of Diana and Giles Crane on Lake Drive in Princeton.
The Cranes had a big living room and a good piano. That night, some 40 people, many of them friends and colleagues of Jones and Wisnovsky, attended the first concert. JazzNights has been going ever since, a word-of-mouth phenomenon that relies on buzz and a 600-strong email list to sustain it.
Though Jones and Wisnovsky don’t advertise, they routinely attract enough patrons to break even, sometimes enough that they must turn people away. Over the years, they’ve showcased many musicians who went on to greater fame, including Charlap, Fred Hersch and Mulgrew Miller.
Cuban pianist Manuel Valera and his trio are set to visit Jones’ home on March 19, for JazzNights concert number 74. JazzNights 75 is scheduled for April 30, when bassist Iris Ornig and her quintet will be on hand.
“It’s not tough for them. We pay them well,” Jones said, explaining how they are able to attract top talent. “We’ve got a lot of agents and musicians emailing us now — more than we can deal with.”
Some shows take place at the home of Michael Curtis and Judy Brodsky, on Clarke Court in Princeton. Jones and Hockaday host most of the rest. They bought their house in Pennington in 2007, a renovated barn with studio space for Hockaday and a living room large enough to hold an 1890’s Steinway grand piano and an audience. They first held a concert there in 2011.
“People say, ‘I can’t believe you’re inviting friends and strangers into your house,’” Hockaday said. “You have to understand, we were house masters at Princeton University. We’re used to people being over all the time.”
On nights when he’s the host, Jones is down at the end of his country driveway by 7:15, helping guests park. “They walk in and there are folding chairs all around the room,” he said. “Food on the table — good snacks you might say, and wine and beer. A lot of the people know each other by now. They mill about talking, the musicians are tuning up their instruments.”
Jones says there are about 100 people who are semi-regular attendees, and about 10 to 15 percent of guests are new each time. “It would be interesting to go back to that first audience list and see if anybody’s left,” he said. “I doubt it.”
Wisnovsky said they have a core of loyalists who attend every concert that they can. “We could maybe have 10 a year and that wouldn’t deter them,” she said. “There’s no question that there’s an audience. Of course, what we would love to have is a younger and more diverse audience. I’m not sure why we don’t.”
Tickets cost $50 (there are discounts for students). Concerts start at 8 p.m. Typically the musicians do a set of 45 to 60 minutes, take a 30-minute break, then do a second set. Most of the time, a show is over by 10:30.
As to how they schedule musicians, Jones admits that “it’s not a super rational process.” About half the time, musicians are returning, and half the time they are new.
“After all these years, there are two main things we want to do,” he said. “We have old friends among the musicians, and we like to bring them back. We also want to have new people. Manuel Valera is new. Iris Orsig is an old friend that’s never played here. Later this year, Fred Hersch is coming back — we’ve known him years and years, we knew Fred before he was Fred Hersch.”
He said the fact that performers are happy to return shows that they enjoy giving the performances.
“They say in these situations, people listen more, they appreciate it more,” Jones said. During a concert, “no one is talking. they literally don’t talk at all. They just listen.”
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Jones has hazy memories of his father taking him to jazz clubs on 52nd Street when he was a boy. “I don’t remember details, but I remember atmosphere,” he said. “I remember the Five Spot. I remember the Half Note, where Mingus used to always play.”
While he was a student at Yale University, Jones often traveled down to New York to see some of the most famous jazz artists of all time play. “I used to hear (Thelonious) Monk play at the Five Spot,” Jones remembered. “I fear at that time, to me, he was just an odd guy who danced between numbers.”
Mary Wisnovsky grew up in Princeton in a home with two grand pianos. She sang in jazz clubs while she was a student at Barnard College.
“I was going to be an opera singer,” said Wisnovsky, who spent her career in public relations and development at McCarter Theatre, Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study, among other places. “I took voice lessons all through my teens. I would go down to the Village to hear jazz, which I’d always loved, but I’d not really sung much of it. One January night my sophomore year — I probably had had one grasshopper too many — and the singer couldn’t get there. But the trio was there, so I sang.”
She sang fairly regularly after that, usually on weekends, at various clubs in New York until she returned to Princeton in 1965 to live with her husband, Joe. They met Jones and Hockaday not long after, Jones having come to Princeton to teach.
Jones and Wisnovsky make it clear that they would love to attract as many new people as possible.
It’s fair to say that 14 years in, Jones hasn’t lost any enthusiasm for the house concert format.
“To go to New York is a big deal — you can get a very good experience in a New York club, but it’s not going to be cheap, and you’re not going to be able to schmooze with the musicians. This has all the intimacy of a New York club and more.”
To reserve a seat at an upcoming JazzNights concert, or to get on their mailing list, send email to mary@wisnovsky.net or mjjr@princeton.edu. Web: jazznightsprinceton.com.
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