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2008 Best Jazz Performer 39.89% Todd Harrold
Others with Votes (more than one):
* On the ballot | 
Todd Harrold has become synonymous with jazz in Fort Wayne, so it wasn't a huge surprise that he earned the Best Jazz Performer Whammy for the third year in a row. Still, Harrold said every award is significant. "It really reinforces that we're going in the right direction and that people are really enjoying what we're doing," he said. "It's just a great honor to do that three times in a row and to be looked upon favorably in the musical community." Harrold most often plays as a trio or a quartet, depending on what musicians he can wrangle up to play with him at his many gigs around town and his steady Friday night engagement at Club Soda. "I kind of have two bands that alternate players in and out, although I'm always with Matt Collins [on keyboards]," Harrold said. "Rob Dixon is there on sax a lot, Dan Mihuc plays guitar when he can, and Wil Brown is on percussion." The band members might rotate, but the quality of the sound and a commitment to never playing the same song twice - unless expressly asked - remain consistent when these fellas take the stage. "We've got about 250 songs in the repertoire, so it's really my goal to play something different for people every night," Harrold said. Harrold, a native of Churubusco, was introduced to jazz by his father who suggested Harrold replace his Styx records with a few by Miles Davis. After that, Harrold's destiny was decided. He became a passionate devotee of jazz with an almost Socratic appreciation of music as an art form. To love one kind is to love all, and to hear a song is often to be able to imagine remixing it to fit his band's styles and talents. "I might hear something on the radio, like 'Magic Carpet Ride,' for instance, and I'll think, 'We could kill that. Just kill it.' It won't sound like Steppenwolf, obviously, but I know it'll sound great," Harrold said. "The same thing happens to me when I'm watching movies. I'll hear a song I like, and it could be by the Eagles or Miles Davis, doesn't matter, and I'll figure out a way for us to do it." Harrold, who once studied at the American Music Conservatory in Chicago and now teaches private lessons out of his home, can be heard extolling the virtues of his favorite acts every Sunday on WBOI as part of his "Burnt Toast Radio Show." Harrold pairs an encyclopedic knowledge of music with an engaging storytelling style that makes the three hours pass all too quickly. "I started doing the show as kind of a self-serving thing," Harrold said. "It made it safe for me to play the kind of music I do in Fort Wayne. The way I look at it, I don't fit in with the straight-ahead jazz people, and the rock n' roll people aren't really sure about me, either, so I figure if I play what I like on the radio show and people like it and get used to it, I'm paving the way for my band to make it." Other vote-getters in the Jazz Performer category include George Ogg, Francie Zucco and Eric Clancey. (Deborah Kennedy) |
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