In a Pentucket school cafeteria, you can go to a one-night-only jazz club

One night each year, the cafeteria at Pentucket Regional Middle High School transforms into a jazz club, where, for over two decades, students, alumni, families and anyone who loves jazz gather for a concert. It’s called Café Jazz, and it’s become a beloved community event and a space where students can show off what they’ve been working on all year. 

Last Friday was the 25th annual Cafe Jazz, so on this week’s Joy Beat, we’re honoring the person who’s at the heart of it all: David Schumacher. And there’s something more to celebrate — David has been named a quarterfinalist for this year’s Grammy Music Educator Award.

David joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to share more about his musical journey and how the Café Jazz tradition lives on. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.

Arun Rath: Congratulations on this news! Take just a moment to tell us how you found out and how it feels to hear about [the nomination] and getting that recognition?

David Schumacher: Sure. So, the Grammy nominations happen annually, and I’ve had several colleagues who have been nominated in the past, and even one who has won the award. It’s always been on my radar screen, and this is the first year I decided to apply.

It’s incredibly rewarding, exciting and humbling. And my ultimate thanks go out to the entire Pentucket music community who have supported me and supported our programs over the past 25 years.

Rath: Brilliant. Let’s talk about Café Jazz. You’ve been running this for 25 years now, but the tradition precedes you, right? Tell us about how Café Jazz got started.

Schumacher: Correct. It’s not my brainchild. It’s actually the brainchild of my former middle and high school jazz band director. I grew up in Plattsburgh, New York, and instead of holding our jazz concerts in the auditorium, he held them in the cafeteria, turned the lights down low, had some casual seating, some food, and it was truly a unique event for the jazz students. I remember it so fondly that I wanted to continue that tradition when I got to Pentucket.

Rath: I gave a brief sketch of how the cafeteria transforms. Tell us in more detail what goes into that scene and atmosphere.

Schumacher: Sure. We have a team of very dedicated volunteers — mostly parents, but some community members and some students — who come in after school and literally transform the space into an intimate jazz club.

We decorate the space, organize and decorate the tables. We have an area for food and refreshments that audience members can partake in throughout the concert. So it’s very casual.

It’s not like a traditional concert on stage where you have to sit still and be quiet. People can mingle, get up, fill their plates, come back and enjoy the show. It really takes on the character of a jazz club, where the stage and audience are on the same level.

Rath: I was in jazz band in high school, and I’m just thinking how cool it must be for those students to be able to play in an environment that’s actually like a jazz club.

Schumacher: I really do think they thrive on the intimacy of the environment, because the audience is literally three, four feet away from them and sitting on the same level. We’re all one big community in that moment, and we can avoid the more traditional disconnect between performers on stage of the auditorium and the audience members out in their seats.

Rath: Talk about that more, because with improvised music like that, that connection with the audience is something special, right?

Schumacher: It’s very special. It’s paramount in the process, really. Communication between the performers — both the soloist and the supporting members of the rhythm section, for instance — is crucial to producing that spontaneous creativity.

The energy that you get from the audience also plays a significant role in that creative pursuit. You feed off that energy, and it inspires you and pushes you in the moment to truly create something unique and special.

Rath: That’s kind of wild! It’s not just obviously fun to play for the students, but that’s really learning jazz in a way you can’t in other ways, right?

Schumacher: I’ve always, as a jazz musician myself, tried to bring a piece of reality to my teaching, so when students are in that moment creating spontaneously, we truly put them in the spirit by surrounding them with that energy.

Rath: I want to make sure I mention one of the coolest things about this: that this is not just students, parents and the school community. This has broadened out to the wider community. Talk about that and how you get people to come in and check this out.

Schumacher: That’s actually one of the things I’m most proud of with this. It’s no longer a concert; it’s an event, and it takes on a different level of intensity and significance. We have community members who are in no way connected to the actual program. They have no students in the program or children in the program, but they come to the concert anyway, and that is truly special and unique to this event.

I thoroughly enjoy speaking with those community members after the show, maybe those who have attended multiple times and are checking in for another year, or some who have shown up for the very first time and want to share their impressions. It’s always truly rewarding to be a part of that community and serve our local community in that way.

Rath: Have you had graduates coming back to see the shows?

Schumacher: Absolutely. Every year, we get alumni who come back to check out the shows. We have done so much with alumni over the years. Alumni will come back and sit in on rehearsals when they can, when they’re back home from wherever they are living now, and they’ll interact with current students.

We’ve established a bit of a cycle of mentorship where students who leave the program come back and give back to the current students. It’s just a wonderful thing for everyone, not only the current students and alumni, but myself, because many of these alumni have gone on to work professionally as musicians or educators. They have evolved into colleagues and friends. So I get to learn from them, as they once learned from me. It’s a beautiful thing.

Rath: That’s just got to mean everything to you as an educator, right? I mean, we call this the “Joy Beat” — it sounds like that’s really your source of joy, right?

Schumacher: Absolutely. These relationships that I build with students, family and the community that have lasted — some of which have lasted 20+ years. It’s truly special. It’s very rewarding, and it’s what gets me up every morning to come back into work.

If you’d like to nominate someone or something for the Joy Beat, leave us a voicemail at (617)-300-BEAT [2328].