Panel Discussion: The Early History of the New Mexico Jazz Workshop

The New Mexico jazz scene would not be what it is were it not for the New Mexico Jazz Workshop (NMJW), which was incorporated in 1976 by a diverse group of Santa Fe-based musicians who came together to jam and perform for 13 weeks each summer on Sunday afternoons at the Oscar L. Huber Ballpark in Madrid, NM. The musicians also performed year-round in other venues in Santa Fe and Albuquerque and presented concerts in schools throughout New Mexico. Founding Jazz Workshop members were Mike Allison and Peter Schoenfeld, plus drummer, Pete Amahl; trombonist, Steve Feld; trumpeters, Jay Peck & Jack Loeffler; clarinetist, Peter Dechert; bassist, Dave Moir; and pianist Sherman Rubin. The group expanded to work with many musicians in Albuquerque and Santa Fe and in 1979, under the direction of Tom Guralnick, the organization moved to Albuquerque, expanding its program of presenting local and touring artists. The list of artists presented from then until now reads like a Who’s Who of jazz luminaries including Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Woody Shaw, Dexter Gordon, Betty Carter, Ornette Coleman, Diana Krall, McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Sanders, Chucho Valdes, and innumerable others. Some 45 years later, the Workshop thrives today with its extensive educational programs and a much-loved summer concert series at the Albuquerque Museum. Tonight’s panel discussion will be a free-ranging evening featuring good memories between old friends and will include four founders of the Workshop—Steve Feld, Pete Amahl, Dave Moir & Jack Loeffler plus graphic artist Michael Motley — as well as Tom Guralnick who took over the reins in 1979. The program will be filmed for posterity. Steve Feld is a musician turned anthropologist and filmmaker. He was involved with the inception of the New Mexico Jazz Workshop from 1974 and its early years in Madrid, and in New Mexico schools. He has presented at Outpost since 1991 with audio and film productions from Papua New Guinea and Ghana, and performances with TG3, Alex Coke and Tina Marsh, Out of Context, Roswell Rudd and Bonefied, Nii Noi Nortey, and Nii Otoo Annan. Drummer Pete Amahl has been one of New Mexico’s most respected musicians ever since he got off Natalie Cole’s tour bus on Highway 14 near Cerrilos, NM in 1970 where he has lived ever since. A 2020 inductee into the New Mexico Music Hall of Fame, Amahl is equally adept at playing everything from jazz, Latin, funk and R&B, to country (Junior Brown’s drummer for two decades), to jazz. He enjoyed a 25-year association with both Eddie Harris and Mose Allison. He has played with numerous artists including Frank Morgan, Herb Ellis, Richie Cole, Greg Abate, Doug Lawrence and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis. The widely admired Jack Loeffler describes himself as “a former jazz musician who began performing on trumpet with small groups in the 1950s who became involved with the New Mexico Jazz Workshop from the mid-1970s through the 1980s and whose greatest jazz influence was Clifford Brown.” He has since supported himself as an environmentalist, aural historian, radio producer and writer. He points out that still has his horns, but the last time he performed in public was to play ‘TAPS’ at the wake of his friend, Edward Abbey in 1989.  Bass player, David Moir was part of the core group of musicians for the 1976 Madrid Ball Park season going on to play with his fellow Jazz Workshop musicians in bands and in school tours throughout New Mexico until 1979. Since then he has played with Hal Ide Trio, the Al Tell Quartet, Yoboso (founding member), Soulstice, the Crawfish Boyz and the Shiners Club Jazz Band. He has also worked as a chef, an employee of Candyman Music Store, a teacher in the Santa Fe Public Schools, a tile contractor, and a software developer. He has been studying tuba for the last few years. Tom Guralnick moved to New Mexico from Boston in 1976 and immediately got involved with the Jazz Workshop, playing music at Madrid. He took over the Workshop’s reins in 1979, moving it from Santa Fe to Albuquerque and became immersed in the non-profit jazz presenting world. He ran the Workshop until 1981 when he moved back east to pursue his music career as an experimental saxophonist. Tonight’s discussion will be introduced by Charles W. Lowery II, yet another key figure in the Jazz Workshop’s long and illustrious history. Charles was involved in the Workshop as a Board Member beginning in 1990, later serving as the organization’s Development Director and its Executive Director for several years in the 2000’s.