Durham Jazz Heroes
It is said if you want to know who a person really is, follow them around for a day. Their habits and daily activities are the breadcrumbs from which a picture emerges. Such is true of tenor saxophonist Dave Finucane, who in partnership with his wife Valerie Courreges has established the community-nurturing Durham Jazz Workshop/Sharp 9 Gallery. They are recognized together as Jazz Heroes.
A Tarrytown, NY native, Dave is an alum of New England Conservatory in Boston. Upon returning to the New York City area after college in the 1990s, he recorded with George Schuller’s band Orange Then Blue and the George Russell Living Time Orchestra. Finacune’s discography highlights his stints recording and touring with high profile players including John Abercrombie, Billy Hart, Kenny Wessel, Roberta Piket and Franck Amsallem, among others.
Dave’s practice of serving his local jazz communty began in the early 2000s in Peekskill, NY at One Station Plaza, the performance venue of the Westchester Jazz Workshop. It was a haven for many NYC-based players and home to a youth jazz workshop.
Relocating to North Carolina’s Research Triangle in 2005 with Valerie, a working visual artist, and their two sons, Finucane taught at Duke University for a time. Then he decided to use his former experience up north as a blueprint for a space in Durham for jazz musicians to play, learn and network.
Dave and Valerie opened Sharp Nine Gallery (the performance room), and Durham Jazz Workshop (a musician incubator) to create a non-academic hub for jazz education in the Triangle (roughly defined by Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill) They started the idea in their home, but with the support of grants from the Jazz Foundation of North Carolina jumped at the opportunity of a location in Durham found in a post on Craigslist. With Valerie directing the Sharp Nine design, Dave focused his attention on introducing classes on small-group band development, jazz improvisation and performance skills for youth and adults — a smart niche given the university-based, big-band centered jazz programs from neighboring universities like North Carolina Central University and UNC Chapel Hill.
Sharp Nine Gallery is a dedicated recital room, with no bar or kitchen and only a small concession stand. This is intentional, promoting the concept of a place where jazz musicians love to play and audiences come not to eat or drink but to listen. In parallel, Durham Jazz Workshop has become a laboratory for middle and high school jazz players who develop and grow along with their peers, and compete in local and regional youth jazz competitions. Many students who began with Dave are now matriculating in university-based jazz programs as music majors, or in jazz ensembles at those programs.
Expanding beyond the original concept, the Workshop/Gallery has added a lecture series, summer camps, online classes and live-streamed concerts. I have rented the space to run my Vocal Jazz Online™ vocal jazz summer camps and have been hired to perform there with several groups including my big-band, Tribe Jazz Orchestra®. Speaking for many area musicians, I can say that Sharp Nine Gallery has been one stage we can count on to present our music without distractions, helping us build our audiences and letting us try out our own jazz entrepreneurial ideas.
During one of my summer camp week-long sessions I saw a painting on the wall that was Valerie’s creation. I was moved. I talked to her about the painting’s origins and bought it immediately. It was so powerful in its image and color scheme that I decorated an entire room in my home from its color palette. She has brought the same artistic sensibility to a raft of responsibilities for DJW/S9G.
Durham Jazz Workshop has become home to the North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra (NCJRO) directed by trumpeter and former UNC Chapel Hill Jazz Studies director Jim Ketch. Saxophonist Gregg Gelb and drummer Kobie Watkins have led ensembles there. DJW now hosts summer big-band camps, outreach programs and student scholarships, concert series, private lessons and teachers’ trainings.
The jazz community throughout this region is grateful for the difference the Durham Jazz Workshop/Sharp 9 Gallery have made, through the commitment and efforts of Dave Finucane and Valerie Courreges — truly Jazz Heroes! — Lenora Zenzalai Helm; photo of Dave Finucane © David Mandel
