{"id":275,"date":"2016-10-20T21:59:29","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T21:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disrupt2create.com\/upstaterdemo\/?p=275"},"modified":"2017-03-02T10:50:11","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T15:50:11","slug":"james-keepnews-musician","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/upstater.com\/james-keepnews-musician\/","title":{"rendered":"James Keepnews – Jazz Promoter and Musician"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hometown: Pelham<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lives in: Beacon
\nFavorite Thing About Upstate: \u201cThe Hudson River. The views of it I have from my windows are so inspiring\u2014especially the sunsets.\u201d
\nLeast Favorite Thing About Upstate: \u201cGentrification concerns me. I guess I feel a little responsible for some of that, since what I do helps attract people to the Hudson Valley. But I still love living here.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s so important to me, to be able to hear interesting and creative music,\u201d says James Keepnews. \u201cIt\u2019s in my DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, it is, although the guitarist, performance artist, writer, and curator of Beacon jazz and experimental music events didn\u2019t always know it. His father\u2019s cousin was Orrin Keepnews,<\/a> the legendary producer and jazz journalist who ran the Riverside Records <\/a>label and worked with Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Wes Montgomery, and other giants\u2014but as a young kid in the sedate Westchester County town of Pelham, James was aware of neither jazz nor his iconic relative\u2019s role in it. \u201cMy immediate family wasn\u2019t really into music, and my dad really wasn\u2019t a fan of Orrin,\u201d says the promoter, whose father was a straitlaced insurance superintendent. \u201cHe saw him as just this irresponsible hepcat<\/a> who hung out with the jazz musicians in Greenwich Village. It wasn\u2019t until I\u2019d become a DJ on my college radio station and started seeing Orrin\u2019s name on all of these important records that I made the connection. He was indefatigable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indefatigable is also an apt descriptor for James Keepnews, who discovered jazz on his own in his teens and began taking guitar lessons during his senior year in high school. \u201cI bought John Coltrane\u2019s Live at the Village Vanguard Again! album,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI thought, \u2018I gotta find out more about this stuff.\u2019\u201d He majored in English and participated in the electronic music program at Hamilton College, where in 1986 he organized his first concert, an appearance by saxophonist David Murray.<\/p>\n

Keepnews, who is also a technical writer and arts journalist, studied under Robert Fripp in the legendary art rocker\u2019s Guitar Craft<\/a> program in New York, where he immersed himself in the city\u2019s experimental jazz and rock scenes. Having earned an MFA in electronic arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he currently commutes by train several days a week to Manhattan for work as a Web developer. His multimedia background occasionally blurs over into his creative side: In 2014, he launched \u201cI Gotta Breathe: A Post-Singularity Blues<\/a>,\u201d a video\/music art project and mobile app, and in 2015 he staged \u201cFeed,\u201d a performance-art installation blending video, spoken word, electronics, and live music.<\/p>\n

Keepnews lived in Peekskill from 1999 until 2010, when he relocated to a loft in Cold Spring. Although he was able to present some jazz events at its historic Chapel Restoration<\/a>, he ultimately found the latter town\u2019s antiques-dominated atmosphere lacked the raw edge he craved. He began casting his eyes and ears slightly upriver, to Beacon. \u201cI would come up just to look at all the amazing old buildings,\u201d he says. In 2013, a year after he\u2019d moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Beacon, the owners of local music venue\/restaurant Quinn\u2019s<\/a> invited him to curate a Monday night jazz series. \u201cI just started making calls, and right away we had the first few months booked,\u201d says Keepnews. Since the series\u2019 inception, the club has hosted top names like Marc Ribot, Joe McPhee, Mary Halvorson, Karl Berger, and Andrea Parkins. \u201cMost artists do two sets, and usually there\u2019s no cover,\u201d explains the organizer. \u201cWe just ask for a donation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The series\u2019 success led to Keepnews\u2019s being asked to manage the Beacon Jazz Festival<\/a>, which debuted last year and will return\u00a0to the town\u2019s Pete and Toshi Seeger Riverfront Park on June 25 *(see note below)<\/em> with a bill headlined by the Sun Ra Arkestra. \u201c[The festival] is very diverse musically and feels like a party, with local food vendors and beer and cocktails by local brewers and distillers,\u201d says Keepnews, who in April unveiled a new noise series at Beacon Yoga.<\/p>\n

Clearly, Keepnews\u2019s jazz genetics and his adopted home are a fine fit. \u201cI was telling a friend recently how glad I was that I found Beacon,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd he told me, \u2018You didn\u2019t find Beacon\u2014Beacon found you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n