Nashville, Tenn. – Shouldered against a stonewall-elevated, neighborhood service spur off-shooting the main Chattanooga Subdivision at 8th Ave. S. and Gleaves St. (the Chattanooga Subdivision is the major CSX Train line that runs through Murfreesboro, directly connecting Chattanooga and Nashville), Rudy’s Jazz Room has been hiding MTSU Jazz Faculty/tenured area saxophonist, Don Aliquo, Jr. in residency, who, on top of nearly completing another academic year teaching Jazz Studies at Middle Tennessee State University, also released his 8th studio album as a band leader, Growth, out of Ear Up Records, February 17, 2023. Aliquo’s Growth not only stands as eight, astutely inspired originals encapsulating the personal growth of a second-generation saxophonist and composer, but as homage to the jazz scene of a second city in which the, now, area-saxophonist has been instrumental in developing for over twenty years. Plus, a show at Rudy’s is good opportunity to revisit an Aliquo jazz class once taken, get a haircut at Scout’s, next door, and grab a taco around the corner at Calle Taco while wandering such an ever-evolving, corner-Nashville neighborhood.
“Yeah, I’m trying to remember even how long Rudy’s has been there, now. It keeps… -Y’know, it doesn’t seem like that long, but I guess it has been five years. And, during the pandemic [we] did everything [we] could to help him keep it going. […] All of a sudden that was worrisome to everybody,” said Don Aliquo, Jr.
“Before, it used to be just called The Cave. And the barber shop that’s next door, that was all, -that was all one big bar, and in the room where [Scout’s] barbershop is, was the bar, and then there was, like, a steel door. You went through this steel door, and it was just this big open room. Now, the brick wall was still there (the north wall of the building is stone wall, inside and out, much like the Chattanooga Subdivision spur) and nothing else was in there. It was just like, a floor […] and some folding chairs and tables. […] It was a dive, but we played a couple times in there with various big bands. They were booking some jazz stuff [in that form of the venue], whoever owned that before, -but [Adam Charney] did a great job of making it into a club and, of course, making it smaller was a good idea.”
Saxophonist Don Aliquo, Jr. was born a May baby in Pittsburgh in 1960, into a familial, jazz atmosphere as Don, Sr., a proud Italian, hooked his son on jazz at an early age, playing John Coltrane’s Giant Steps (“Coltrane was my main inspiration”) and Sonny Rollins classics before Don Jr. began soaking up more pop-inclined crossover saxophonists including Ronnie Laws (Earth, Wind & Fire), Grover Washington, Jr. (a founder of the smooth jazz genre), and Tom Scott (L.A. Express, The Wrecking Crew). During high school, his father countered by playing more Trane, proclaiming, “That’s the real deal!”
By his senior year, Aliquo, Jr. was gigging several times a week (read music so well at that age, even his dad sent him into gigs as a sub), sometimes with his lifelong friend and future Wynton Marsalis bandmate, Lincoln Center alumni drummer, Jeff Watts. But hungry for bandstand experience, Aliquo would hang around jazz clubs in one part of town, learning songs like ‘All the Things You Are’ just to walk up the street and play them at another club. If he got lucky, he said he “might be able to play the same tune in a few places,” but all in the tail end of a vibrant club scene in Pittsburgh (previous two paragraphs, paraphrased bio, donaliquo.com, Bio | Don Aliquo).
Aliquo’s musical development continued at the Berklee College of Music (Boston), where he played in the International Dues Band directed by Phil Wilson, and at Duquesne University (Pittsburgh) while recording with Roger Humphries of the legendary Horace Silver Band. However, since 1999, Don has held a faculty position at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) near Nashville, TN (ten years of which, Head of Jazz Faculty Studies) where he would talk about Earth, Wind, and Fire, as well as form a musical partnership with fellow jazz faculty and pianist Dana Landry and bassist Erik Applegate. The three recorded Another Reply with drummers Chris Brown and Jim White, charting the Top 20 jazz records during its release, with critical acclaim in Europe and North America (paragraph paraphrased, allaboutjazz.com, Don Aliquo Musician – All About Jazz).
During the summer months of 2023 (June – September), Don Aliquo continued somewhat of a long residency at Rudy’s Jazz Room with five or six shows a month at the various time slots Rudy’s has to offer, adding to his years already playing the venue, so Folk & Proper ran around the city for a month to catch up with him during his September 2023 shows, [the] Don Aliquo Trio, September 16 at Rudy’s late night, 11pm slot; Don Aliquo quartet, September 23, at Rudy’s early, five pm slot; and Don Aliquo quartet “w/ Special Guest,” September 30, at Rudy’s primetime eight pm slot.
Don Aliquo’s gigs may vary from three to five players at any given time, no matter what the website or marquee says.
Aliquo’s special guest on September 30th was Chicago-to-Nashville trumpeter, Rod McGaha.
Rudy’s primetime eight pm slot, September 30, 2023, became standing room only once Rudy’s filled with those who, first, bought tickets online at rudysjazzroom.com.
Which eventually led to Folk & Proper getting Don Aliquo to sit down at Joe & Dough in Murfreesboro, Oct. 16, 2023, to catch a breath.
F&P: I’m not sure if [“Pedal Taverns” is] out on one of your albums already. – I mean, I listened to the albums, but I haven’t… [bought Sp*tify Premium].
Don Aliquo: It is. It is. Yeah.
F&P: …well, along with that sentiment of fresh discovery, and in Nashville, you played “Pedal Taverns,” live, the first time I’d heard it. I need to look through your track listings, again, I apologize, but it just seems like a good …theme for the residency.
Don Aliquo: (heartily/semi-maniacally laughs. -He’s got one of those genuine laughs that’s catching to other people; Makes for a good stage presence).
F&P: …And Growth came out earlier in the year, so it seems like a good time to see what Don Aliquo is up to.
Aliquo: Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, I mean that tune is on Growth. That whole record came about as I was trying to document my growth, but also the city’s growth a little bit. Like, poke fun of some of it, y’know. “Pedal Taverns.”
Aliquo: And “Naked Statues” was another one that sort of, -y’know, I don’t know if you remember the fuss about the statues in Demonbreun, y’know.
F&P: Putting clothes on’m?
Aliquo: Yeah. Trying to remember… Of course, “Growth” is self-explanatory. Some of the other titles had Nashville connotations (“Lower Broadway Rundown”) or were personal reflections of my time in Nashville, so to speak. And then I had never done a recording in Nashville with Nashville musicians. I’ve been here twenty years and figured it’s probably about time to do that. So, I decided I would do that. I had two rhythm sections on that record. The first rhythm section, I had been playing a fair amount with, or at least, the drummer, Marcus Finnie in […], -I [had been] playing a lot of the late shows and doing them as trios, and I found that I really like the trio format and wanted to record that way. Hadn’t really done it much as a recording artist [Finnie was available already through the preferable trio work].
F&P: You get ridiculously boppy in your trios.
Aliquo: Well…
F&P: …or more so than your quartets.
Aliquo: Yeah, that’s probably true.
F&P: For the September gigs, you had a fluctuation of ages in your musicians, like the bassists…
Aliquo: Oh, yeah. So, the first one was Jacob Jezioro. He’s been in town, now, […] maybe, two or three years. He’s on the second rhythm section [of Growth]. […] And then the show [after] that, [with] the black-haired guy from New York, -he’s from here. -From Nashville. And he went to New York to study and came back. That’s Jack Aylor. He’s a fine player. They’re both really good.
“That’s one nice thing about the scene and the city is, as they grow, there seems like more and more young people who are, -who want to play jazz and are serious about it. Of course, having a venue to play, I think helps out, too, but, man, there’s a lot, -lots, probably deeper, stable musicians here, now, than there has been for, -at least for as jazz is concerned, for a long time,” said Aliquo.
F&P: The progress has been [that] noticeable since the past?
Aliquo: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I would say so. Most definitely. Probably five years. Within the past five years, it’s grown a lot. […] That’ a good thing for everybody. I like having a lot of the young guys, y’know. If they’re serious about it and take care of business, I like having them on a gig. It’s fun for me, too.
F&P: …and then your drummers. I can’t remember well enough, but “Dr. Fromme?” Is that right?
Aliquo: Oh. Dr. Widenhofer. Hehhehheh. Yeah. Marc Widenhofer.[…] He has a doctorate [and] teaches at Vanderbilt. [Joel Frahm is a saxophonist that stepped in from the bar to make Aliquo’s trio a quartet, the September 16th, 11pm gig].
I actually knew [Dr. Widenhofer] when he was a student at the University of Northern Colorado. He and I stayed in contact and I’m gonna be out there playing with those guys, the end of November, […] for about a week. […] Marc went to school where [ex-MTSU Jazz Studies] Dana [Landry] teaches, so there’s been a big cross-pollination between the Denver school […] and MTSU who have gone there from us, and who have gone there to get their doctorates, but then we’ve had some people from there come here either to live or to play or to get their master’s with us, or something. It’s kind of interesting.
F&P: Usually it’s all the kids saying, ‘oh, I’m from Berkelee,’ but, now, it’s University of Colorado Denver.
Aliquo: Oh, yeah, yeah (heartily laughs).
F&P: And, I didn’t catch you with a piano player in the September sets, but you did play some Monk. Fellow Rudy’s player Jody Nardone up to his own thing?
Aliquo: He plays there, too, with his own trios. And I’ve known him forever, too. He’s one of the first musicians I probably met when I moved here. We didn’t play together for years, -for a long time. And then we started playing together, ironically enough, with the trumpet player who’s on my gig, Rod McGaha, so we’re both kind of playing with this crew in Rod’s quartet. That’s when I started playing with Jody again, and since that point, we try to hook up a few times a year at some venue, y’know.
F&P: As is standard for jazz musicians to work with each other through different sets, and what not, your albums do the same, so if I’m looking at one article that says you’ve got five albums already, it’ll say eight somewhere else, and it’s because you play on other people’s albums, and vice versa.
Aliquo: Yeah, I think you end up finding the people you want to work with through trial and error. You hear about people. And that’s the thing, it’s, like, almost, -and the older you get, I think it becomes more important. It’s almost like how they play is very important, obviously, but how they are as people matters, too. Like, so, there are great players that probably don’t enjoy playing with me as much, or I don’t like playing with them. It’s not because we don’t like, or don’t respect the music, it’s just as colleagues, we don’t click personally, you know what I mean? …Really, I could’ve said this a lot easier and said, ‘well, I like playing with people I think are positive and have great energy and are fun to play with. They’re fine people, too. You know what I mean? […] So, obviously, we don’t hold up personally with everybody, that’s true with musicians, too.
F&P: Well, that begs the question, after the twenty years you’ve been around, and where you[…] are you happy with the scene/collective that’s built thus far?
Aliquo: Yeah (said nodding his head).
F&P: Are you still trying to improve on it?
Aliquo: Oh, I’m still trying to improve on it. There’s no doubt about that. Yeah, I mean, in an interesting aspect of that, of late, and this may sound funny to you, but I’ve always like to hire people, -especially when I do the late night, 11 o’clock shows, I would try to hire people for a couple reasons: One, to check out their playing, like, if I’ve heard about them, or if I’ve heard they’re good, I might call them and just check it out or see if I want to keep playing with them. So, that’s one aspect of it. And then, to give younger players a chance, that’s another aspect of it. To maybe mentor a little bit, that’s one aspect of it, but I never would rehearse. I would just go in and hit, y’know: ‘Okay, this is what we’re gonna play.’ I would usually send a list of hoping to, -could, play and then just go for it, man. Y’know what I mean? Just No pretense. And I still want to do that, but lately, I found that if I rehearse, I get a little better result from people.
I’ve been going back through my catalogue of tunes, -and I’ve written a lot of tunes that are sort of quirky, or sort of, like, they lend themselves well to a trio, or… y’know. So, I’m going back and playin’m. That’s been fun. I’ve had fun. -Yeah, it’s been a lot of fun. Like, ‘Oh, wow.’ That’s encouraged me to write, so I’ve been writing. I’m trying to write.
I’d like to do another recording, maybe, right after the first of the year. I’m in the process of trying to figure out who and what and when. That’s always the darn thing with planning….
F&P: It might be futile. [For “Pedal Tavern,” as played by the September quartets,] you had guitarist one night, and trumpet on another. Again, there wasn’t a pianist on there, but there was added guitar and trumpet on separate evenings for two versions of “Pedal Tavern,” and then the trio version [just sax, bass, and drums, no help-kinda bop]. All completely different. -Well, not completely different, but with different instrumentation on your own tune, …it was a different… sort of… “wreck,” I envisioned…
F&P, quickly: -Uh,… umm… a different sort of “Pedal Tavern” wreck (“Pedal Tavern” is a quick and ideal bop groove that musically depicts a wreck between a couple of the pedal tavern bus pubs ubiquitous to downtown Nashville. Mr. Aliquo witnessed a couple of them wreck into each other one day and wrote a tune about it)!
Aliquo: Oh! (Hearty laughs) Good.
F&P: [Each of those September versions] [gave] it a different feel, but still a good “audible painting” of Nashville. […] Those things are… -The song fits very well.
Aliquo: Oh, yeah, that whole scene is out of control. It’s hilarious.
“November 10th and 18th, I’m doing the late-night shows with trios, and then the 24th and 25th, -which is the two days… -It might the the 25th, 26th, but it’s the two days after Thanksgiving that we’re doing that weekend with Michael [Jefrey Stevens]. That’ll be great. That’s gonna be a lot of fun. After that, I think I have something in December, but it’s with Pat Coil. It’s not my groups, but I’m sure they’ll be something happening soon. [Adam, the owner, will] be in touch with me, I’m sure.”
Don Aliquo’s latest release, Growth, which includes the most current original local standard, “Pedal Tavern,” can be found across the icons at YouTube Music, Pandora, Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer, and on Amazon. More information, including a full discography and show announcements can be found at donaliquo.com, as well as frequently updated info. at his Facebook page, /don.aliquo.7, or this Facebook link.
Rudy’s Jazz Room is located at 809 Gleaves St. in the Nashville neighborhood, The Gulch, right off of 8th Ave. South before the roundabout, if northbound on 8th. They can be reached at (615) 988-2458., as well as at rudysjazzroom.com. Venue schedule and tickets can be found and pre-purchased, respectively, at rudysjazzroom.com, as well.
A couple of pandemic sessions played with Jody Nardone can be found at https://fb.watch/o6OADgnPM2/ (Rudy’s facebook live, July 25, 2020), and https://youtu.be/w4_Aq-OLUaQ (Rudy’s live stream on YouTube, June 6, 2020).
Joe and Dough Cafe is located at 1220 E. Northfield Boulevard, Suites B & C, Murfreesboro, TN.
Additional CSX Transportation reporting by Connor Bradford.
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