Acclaimed jazz ensemble Emily Asher’s Garden Party brings its nostalgia-rooted performance to the Sounds of Summer concert at Misericordia University’s Under the Stars Summer Arts Festival.
The group, well-known in the New York City area since 2012, promises to play Great American Songbook selections made famous by the likes of Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, as well as their own compositions at the Sunday performance at the Wells Fargo Amphitheater at Misericordia University, Dallas, Pa.
The group’s leader, Emily Asher, said Garden Party plays a little something for everyone.
“Kids respond really well to this type of music,” said Asher, referencing a clarinet solo she heard while watching “Monsters Inc.” with her niece.
She also noted the increasing popularity of jazz music in the modern era, and how this allows her music to appeal to new audiences.
“Gatsby-era culture is becoming very chic,” she said.
The band includes a clarinet, saxophone, bass and vocalist, all led by Asher and her trombone, which she has been mastering since childhood. Asher’s father was a band director and musician who sparked her initial interest in playing trombone, but made her wait until the fifth grade to start.
“He didn’t think I would have the discipline until then,” Asher said.
She continued on to play in several school bands, eventually attending the University of Washington in her hometown of Seattle to pursue degrees in music education and jazz studies. With these degrees, Asher went on to teach junior high school band. One and a half years into this position, she visited New York City and fell in love with it, setting her sights on moving there to play music. After finishing another year and a half of teaching, she made the move and pursued her master’s degree in jazz from Queen’s College. While in the city, she met jazz musician Wycliffe Gordon, who encouraged her to make her first record.
“That was a very powerful experience for me,” Asher said. “I felt like it gave some legitimacy to my career.”
Asher found more work as a performer and made another album before getting a day job as a booking agent for Columbia Artist Management.
Garden Party formed in 2012, with a friend suggesting the name after the many garden parties she and Asher had in their shared home.
Offering “fresh growth from vintage roots,” the band enjoys a successful career of performing and recording, hailed by the Wall Street Journal as “red hot” and “very exciting.”
“Everybody will hear something that’s familiar,” Asher said of the band’s upcoming Misericordia performance. “I feel like it’s very uplifting.”
Tickets for the Under the Stars Summer Arts Festival are $120 for a six-seat festival table, $15 for ampitheater seating and $10 for lawn seats. For tickets, call 570-674-6719 or visit misericordia.edu/uts.
For more on Emily Asher’s Garden Party, visit emilyasher.com.
Contact the writer: jkurovsky@citizensvoice.com