Jarrett and Friends

Posted by Serafima Fedorova in Music

Scott Jarrett performing. Photo by: René Bjorheim

“I could be bringing home more bacon than I’m taking,” sang Scott Jarrett, a Contemporary Music Program faculty member. A quiet laughter spread across the room from the audience, who either agreed with the statement in the lyrics of Jarrett’s song “I’m a Rich Man,” or was amused by the rhyme. Inside the O’Shaughnessey Performance Space on March 1, a mix of students, faculty and locals listening to the performance all shared one thing in common: They all appreciated Scott Jarrett and his music.

Evoking the improvisational and melodic qualities of jazz and folk music, Jarrett was accompanied by other CMP faculty: Paul Brown on bass; Tom Adler on banjo and guitar; and CMP Chairman Horace Alexander Young on winds.

“I try to write music that is harmonically interesting enough for other musicians to want to play along with it,” Jarrett said about performing with the other faculty members. “There’s another level of improvisation that happens when you perform with talented players.”

The songs themselves evoked both universal and personal themes. Jarrett’s lyrics resembled poetry and urged listeners to pay close attention. “Just A River Rolling” had some great lines describing the flow of the river into the sea.

“The song is a story about me that can apply to anyone,” Jarrett explained. “The idea is that I’m the river and that I’m heading towards the sea carrying questions and tears. It’s about being there to carry on down the road towards something bigger.”

Jarrett described his writing process as a way of reflecting upon his own life. The lyrics and melody often arrive separately. Writing the words to the song is often the final and most difficult part.

“It’s like a crossword puzzle, making sure that things fit together,” Jarrett said about his music. “I could never just write a song in a single go. I finish a verse and then go back to it later. Switch things around. I use a thesaurus and a dictionary to look things up.” He described a time he once wrote a song called “Unknown.” Jarrett didn’t have a title so the name stuck. The song ended up being about the unknown and took on its own meaning. A lot of his music is introspective and an expression of a feeling.

Jarrett also played some songs he recalls disliking when he first wrote them. He mentioned looking back at a lyric he wrote in 1972 to the song “Love is a Sharp Knife” during a phase he was going through. Jarrett talked about how he rediscovered the song later and enjoyed it. “Sometimes I feel silly singing love songs now,” he said. “You just have an inkling of some part of yourself and you feel embarrassed about it and then you go back to it more mature and appreciate it.”

As a mentor to many students and as a professional musician, Jarrett also talked about keeping an open mind and constantly learning new things. He urged younger bands, as well as students creating and performing music, to pay attention, to watch out for getting stuck inside one’s mind, and to keep listening. Jarrett advised: “If you can quit playing music, you should. It’s a hard thing to do and it’s hard to be successful at. But there a lot of things you get from it which you can’t find anywhere else.”

Horace Alexander Young, chair of the Contemporary Music Program, played alongside Jarrett. Photo by: René Bjorheim