Bend Music Education Workshop

Eldon “T” Jones and veteran N Touch members Anthony Jones and Chris Turner played an intimate morning concert and put on a jazz clinic as part of the Jazz at the Oxford series in Bend! Young and old alike came out to learn the interworkings of jazz. N Touch played their signature brand of groove jazz and delighted the audience more accustomed to listening to straight ahead jazz.

Eldon shared stories of working as a musician, and Chris described his process of song-writing based off one riff coming to mind and building a melody around just a few notes. Anthony encouraged young musicians to seek out mentors in their community and to learn songs from the Real Book to play at jam sessions.

After the Q&A, host, drummer, and music educator Georges Bouhey invited aspiring Bend musicians to join the band in playing Eddie Harris’s “Cold Duck Time.” These teen boys, visibly nervous at first, killed it and smiled on stage as they supported each other’s improvised solos and received encouragement from the N Touch guys!

Thank you to Denis Point of Bend for the professional photos and Bryan Atkinson for the cell phone pics.