Tucson Jazz Hero
Jazz has always been big here in Tucson. Even before its annual festival debuted ten years ago, the city boasted one the country’s largest jazz societies, whose regular concerts featured many of the world’s most important jazz artists alongside an array of well-known and accomplished locals. The only thing missing was a dedicated jazz venue, until Tucson-born Arthur Vint flew back home from New York City to open the magnificent Century Room at the historic Hotel Congress.
Arthur got his first drum set at age six and moved through private lessons with Tucson’s best teachers and artists (such as Fred Hayes and Homero Cerón) to training with the Arizona Jazz Academy (which became the famed Tucson Jazz Institute) and the Tucson Philharmonia Youth Orchestra. The next destination on his journey was, logically enough, the Big Apple.
While and after earning degrees from William Paterson University (New Jersey) and the Manhattan School of Music, Arthur cut his chops with the usual assortment of smaller and bigger gigs and recording dates, including regular appearances with Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks and worldwide tours with Postmodern Jukebox. His solo and composing career began with the formation of Arthur Vint & Associates, whose first album (Through The Badlands, drawing heavily on the sounds and imagery of his hometown) dropped at the 2016 Tucson Jazz Festival.
But nothing prepared Arthur for his Tucson Jazz Hero’s cape more than the 10 years he spent almost every night at the Village Vanguard, learning how to run a jazz club by setting up and tearing down, mopping floors, cleaning toilets and taking out the trash before working his way up to head bartender and manager of the club’s website, ticketing and social media.
The owners of Hotel Congress, Richard and Shana Oseran, had visions of opening a mezcal tasting room and piano bar in an underutilized banquet facility. When Arthur returned to Tucson for a teaching gig at the University of Arizona, he proposed opening the room as a jazz club, and the owners jumped on the idea. Son of a prominent Tucson architect, Arthur taught himself AutoCad and designed a space inspired by the Vanguard. The owners spared no expense building it out, and appointed Arthur as the club’s general manager and artistic director (and house drummer!) to run the club in his vision of a New York-style jazz club but with the finest local bites and agave spirits (such as mezcal, bacanora and sotol), along with some tequila for the turistas. The club now attracts the world’s most important jazz artists, with a Grammy winner almost every week, and is home to Tucson’s array of dazzling local players.
As if all this were not enough, Arthur has taken the lead in supporting the Tucson Jazz Music Foundation to build out a jazz education program at the club. Next up is a capital campaign to secure an excellent grand piano. As “activist, advocate, altruist, aider and abettor of jazz” for Tucson, Arthur Vint checks all the boxes!
— Alan Hershowitz
Artistic Director, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music
