Merrimack Valley Magazine

NoteWorthy – 11/17/19

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AROUND THE VALLEY

North of Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau Celebrates Tourism Awards

The North of Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau held its 2019 Annual Meeting, Tourism Awards and Mini-Grant Ceremony on Nov. 7 at the Blue Ocean Event Center.

Among the 2019 North of Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau Tourism Award winners were Karen and Glenn Cook of Amesbury’s Cider Hill Farm and Mass. Sen. Diana DiZoglio. The communities of Lawrence, Andover and North Andover were given special recognition for their collective leadership, compassion and perseverance during the Merrimack Valley natural gas disaster of 2018.

Lowell Community Health Center, UMass Lowell and D’Youville Life & Wellness Community Among  Massachusetts 2019 Top 100 Women-Led Businesses

Lowell Community Health Center (Lowell CHC) CEO Susan West Levine, UMass Lowell Chancellor Jaqueline Moloney and President of D’Youville Life and Wellness Company Naomi Prendergast were honored on Nov. 8 by the Commonwealth Institute (TCI) and the Globe Magazine for leading one of the Commonwealth’s most noteworthy women-led businesses. This is the first time that Lowell CHC has been included on this list.

Spanning all sectors, the 2019 list includes leaders of health care companies, retail giants, construction companies, financial institutions and nonprofit groups.

The Commonwealth Institute, a nonprofit that supports female business leaders, examined revenue or operating budget as well as other variables, including number of full-time employees in the state, workplace and management diversity and innovative projects. TCI then ranked organizations according to its own formula. This is the 19th year that TCI has created the list and the seventh year that the Globe Magazine has partnered with the group.

For the complete list of honorees, click here.

Enterprise Bank Named Best Place To Work Among Large-Sized Companies

Enterprise Bank has been named the number one place to work among large-sized companies in the employee-based “Top Places to Work” survey from The Boston Globe. Enterprise Bank has been recognized as a top employer since 2012.

In a joint statement, Chairman George L. Duncan, President Richard W. Main and CEO Jack Clancy said “We are deeply honored and humbled that the opinions of our team members have earned us recognition as the Top Place to Work. There is nothing more important to us than our Enterprise Family, who have made Enterprise what it is today. Our team and work environment is our greatest asset and is what sets us apart from other companies. We are truly a family — united by our core values of integrity, community, excellence, teamwork and professionalism.”

Chelmsford Center for the Arts Hosts 10th Anniversary Gala Celebration

Dan Rodriguez and soprano Sarah Ryman perform at the CCA’s Gala. Photo by Bob Stegmaier of Silver Fox Studios.

On Friday, Nov. 8, 2019, the Chelmsford Center for the Arts (CCA) hosted its 10th Anniversary Gala Celebration. The Gala was attended by nearly 100 members of the community, including donors, artists and the CCA leadership and advisory board.

Performers included pianists Diana Tetzlaff, Nathan An, Zoe Liu, Dan Rodriguez and Frank Wilkins; flutist Sarah Buliszak; vocalists Sarah Wyman and Joan Watson-Jones; and rock band True North. Anna Kehoe, a Chelmsford High School student, charmed the audience with the story of how she raised $2,500 for the CCA.

Susan Gates, the CCA’s executive director, said, “While there is still much to accomplish, we celebrate all we have done over the past decade to make the Chelmsford Center for the Arts the only public visual and performing arts center serving Chelmsford and the Merrimack Valley. The Gala showcased the impact we have on young artists and the caliber of professional musicians we present at the CCA.”

UMass Lowell Honors Local Oprah Winfrey Scholars

Photo by Tory Wesnofske for UMass Lowell

Sixty UMass Lowell students who are this year’s Oprah Winfrey Scholars were recognized at an event at University Crossing on Friday, Nov. 15, the one-year anniversary of Winfrey’s appearance at UMass Lowell’s Chancellor’s Speaker Series. A total of $300,000 in scholarships was awarded to the scholars, who hail from cities and towns across New England as well as Washington, D.C. The funds raised will allow UMass Lowell to continue to award Oprah Winfrey scholarships for years to come.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Sound Recording Pioneer Named UMass Lowell Distinguished University Professor

Music Prof. William Moylan, architect of UMass Lowell’s nationally acclaimed Sound Recording Technology program, has been named the 2019 Distinguished University Professor. The highest accolade bestowed on a UMass Lowell faculty member, the award honors educators for exemplary teaching, research and service to the university. 

Moylan, an authority on audio engineering and music theory, founded UMass Lowell’s Sound Recording Technology (SRT) program in the 1980s. A signature course of study at the university and one of only a few of its kind in the United States, the program is a renowned training ground for professionals in all fields involving capturing sound. The program has produced numerous Grammy and Emmy winners, and UMass Lowell graduates working in the industry are making essential contributions to music, radio, TV, film, video and live-event production.

Dylan Jack – Jazz Drummer Searches for the Infinite Beat

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As a student at Tewksbury Memorial High School, Dylan Jack submerged himself in the extreme music known as death metal. He spent his paychecks on CDs by bands such as Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse, and pored over magazines with names like Terrorizer while refining his chops as a hard rock musician.

One day, his grandfather asked him if he had heard of Gene Krupa. Jack was unfamiliar with the thunderous, hard-swinging drummer, so his grandfather showed him footage of the man who was as heavy and intense as any in the world of metal. Seeing Krupa go to war on his drum kit changed Jack’s life.

Years later, Jack was still cranking out rock music, and the guitarist in his band asked him why he wouldn’t play songs the same way twice. “I don’t want to!” he remembers thinking. “It just hit me. I’m more like a jazz drummer, improvising in everything that I’m playing. And then I thought, OK, that’s what I want to do.”

He went on to major in music at college. In his first year, a professor told him he didn’t have what it took to be a professional musician. Jack walked away in anger. He dropped out and enrolled at Middlesex Community College, earning an associate degree in 2008 before continuing on to the McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Jack graduated in 2011 with a degree in percussion performance and returned home. In 2016, he earned a master’s degree in modern American music from the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Now, Dylan Jack is back in Tewksbury and makes a living behind the drum kit. He is an instructor at music schools in Medford and Waltham, and at Music Elements in Chelmsford. “I love to teach,” says Jack, now 32.

He also performs live, sometimes 80 or 90 times a year. Making it as a live jazz performer can be tough. Jack tells stories of playing in clubs where the crowd is drawn more by the booze than the beats. Fights break out. By the end of the night, his sneakers are sticky with stale beer. The long drive home after such gigs can feel long indeed.

“Diagrams” features liner notes by New York jazz critic David Adler and was put out on the Creative Nation label. The CD release party was held last year at the Chelmsford Center for the Arts, where the Dylan Jack Quartet will return on June 8 to perform new compositions.

The Dylan Jack Quartet released its first album, “Diagrams,” in 2017, and is currently working on the follow-up. The quartet includes Eric Hofbauer on guitar, Anthony Leva on bass, and Todd Brunel on clarinet and saxophone.

Listen to an alternate version of ‘Geometry’ by the Dylan Jack Quartet from ‘Diagrams.’

 

Jack wants the next record to capture the raw and immediate aspects of a live performance. “I’ve always wanted drums to sing. I want to hear the bass slap against the wood. I want to hear that attack of the instrument.” It’s as though he’s seeking all the energy, improvisation and freedom of a live set, but without the distraction of whisky-fueled chatter.

He’s also pushing the length of the songs. There’s an extended piece called “The Twelve-Foot Man.” Jack imagines the mysterious figure who inspired the title as a combination of the vampire from F.W. Murnau’s silent classic “Nosferatu,” and Judge Doom from the 1988 film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.” “It is also a really difficult piece of music,” Jack says of the song. “A tall man and a tall task.”

Another composition is called “Gauchais Reaction.” The title refers to an effect in psychology. “You take on another form of somebody. You take on their mannerisms. … So I took a melody and moved everything up a half step following it. The notes chase each other.” In these twin melodies, Jack explains, “The notes are the same, but they’re sharped, and they begin to meld into each other on both the guitar and bass clarinet.”

Another new song is based on an inscription found on an ancient Greek headstone — the epitaph of Seikilos, regarded as the oldest surviving piece of written music. Jack’s version, “The Epitaph,” brings imaginative closure to the record and to the story of the Twelve-Foot Man as he fades into silence.

Jack is drawn to many of the dark themes that stirred his younger imagination. He is open to returning to his own musical roots. “I’ve talked to my bass player about writing heavier music,” Jack says. “In fact, he brought it up yesterday and asked me, ‘Hey, have you ever written some of that heavier stuff?’ And you know, I’ve thought about it.”

However, it would have to be on his terms. “I’m not big on using distortion for this music. I want it to be something with more of a feel of that genre. … But I just love that heavier sound.”

He notes, “I love dark feels and dark vibes. And I’m not a dark person.” These are, after all, contradictions to be resolved in rhythm. Against the tensions between heavy and light, past and future, the infinite beat goes on.

DylanJackMusic.com

Photos by Adrien Bisson

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