Kasan Belgrave Takes Off

As a jazz journalist, attending summer festivals is almost a rite of passage, a journey to a place where so many pieces of the international jazz community are gathered in one spot to sample, or to indulge oneself. Over the years, accompanied by repeated visits, the sights and sounds of the festival locations become clearer and more familiar, the vibe more encompassing. You come to realize that many festival sites become jazz deserts once the festival circus leaves town. They are simply geographic annual event coordinates, a brief gathering spot. There are others however, that rise to international acclaim as an outgrowth of a local scene that includes a thriving mentorship cycle creating a jazz continuum of sorts. A city where music comes first, and generations of talent are produced to inevitably leave and impact the jazz community worldwide. Detroit is such a place. While jazz journalists typically are aware of the city's impact on jazz and pop music culture, few outside of the state of Michigan would ever have ventured there to experience the thriving local scene if not for the annual jazz festival that takes place for four days out of each year.

Detroit saxophonist Kasan Belgrave resides in a city where Black jazz culture has thrived since the great migration of the 1940's when the automobile industry exploded during and after the second great war. It is a jazz culture that boasts a personal lineage that includes Elvin Jones, Alice Coltrane, Betty Carter, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Barry Harris, Ron Carter, Joe Henderson and many, many more. Much like Philadelphia, its historic roster of jazz greats rises from a local jazz scene that nurtures its young and reveres its elders. It is a scene that occupies night clubs, jam sessions, performance halls and academic institutions year round. When the annual festival leaves town, the vessel remains full, ready to march forward generation to generation. The city's current crop of twenty-something ascending stars include trumpeter Trunino Lowe, drummer Louis Jones III, pianist Sequoia Snyder (Redwood) pianist Michael Malis and the aforementioned Belgrave to name but a handful of young Detroit jazz musicians making their respective marks on the national modern jazz scene.

Belgrave is an ascending talent on all woodwind instruments, and a recent graduate of Rodney Whitaker's acclaimed program at Michigan State University in Lansing. His bandmates at his Cliff Bell's residency rise from his time growing up in Detroit early on, and during his time at both Michigan and Michigan State. Like most talented jazz musicians his age, he is in the process of moving to New York to launch his career. In most ways, his life as a young jazz musician is unremarkable, save one fact of life—his last name.

Belgrave is the son of the legendary trumpeter and educator Marcus Belgrave, who passed away in 2015. While the elder Belgrave had an internationally acclaimed career as a jazz performer and session musician for a litany of classic Motown recordings, his role as an educator and mentor in the city of Detroit is undoubtedly his most impactful contribution to the international jazz legacy.

Jazz music as a global community is a network of local jazz communities that work tirelessly to pass the baton from generation to generation. It is how the music has not only survived, but proliferated over a hundred years mostly outside of institutional learning. All of these communities have major educational figures within them, but few can compare to the massive impact of the elder Belgrave on Detroit musicians, including those on the aforementioned long list of Detroit jazz greats. They include pianist Geri Allen, saxophonist Kenny Garrett, violinist Regina Carter, bassists Whitaker and Robert Hurst and drummers Karriem Riggins and Ali Jackson. He was a founding member of the Detroit recording collective, Tribe. As the jazz scene of the early seventies diminished in the darkness of the recession and Motown Records' decision to move its operation to Los Angeles, Belgrave's interest turned to education, forming the highly impactful Jazz Development Workshop. His sights were clearly focused on the creative integrity of jazz music in his city—Detroit.

Kasan Belgrave grew up around the culture of his father and his colleagues. From the start, it was living life through music for the entire family. His dad had a reputation for being hard on his students, as did his entire generation of musicians. "My dad had an abrasiveness about him when it came to his purpose—music," says Belgrave. It was expressing love through music, teaching routine and discipline. For the younger Belgrave, it wasn't just his dad. "It wasn't just him, he had a circle of friends dedicated to teaching the music. It was bassist Donald Mayberry, trombonist Ed Gooch and others," he remembers. "It's like a family, we're all living life through music."

In seeking mentorship himself in a college program, Belgrave's choices assured he would be mentored by musicians like Whitaker and Hurst who were in turn mentored by his dad and whose methodologies were indoctrinated by the same ideas. He knew it would be tough love, much like the oral tradition of generations past. "Learning at an institution is way different than learning from my father and his musical peers, going to jam sessions, learning songs late at night. It's two different sides of the spectrum," he cites. "Rodney Whitaker, Robert Hurst, they're amazing mentors and teachers. They wouldn't treat me any differently than if we were outside of the institutional realm."

Belgrave is much like his father in that he is inspired to explore different paths in the labyrinth that is the jazz tradition. His work on the J Dilla tribute set with Artist-In-Residence Riggins at the 2023 Detroit Jazz Festival speaks to that. As a saxophonist in modern jazz, Belgrave possesses a sound that is well grounded in hard bop and colored by the blues, reminiscent of Sonny Criss or Jackie McLean. With his first recording due out this fall, Belgrave's appearance on any stage in his hometown takes the shape of a turning point for this son of Detroit, whose very name carries with it the enormous weight of expectation one would expect. "My name is Belgrave, everywhere I go, I'm going to have an expectation sought out for me," he says, gently smiling as he mildly shakes his head. It comes with the territory.

The similarities between father and son do not end there. His father showed him the importance and value of teaching, and exhibited a great amount of joy in doing so. For his son, the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree. "He enjoyed teaching and mentoring more than fame would ever get him. I have that in my genetics too—I love teaching, I love seeing kids learn something new, being able to express themselves with an instrument. That's in my blood, too," he exclaims.

As a youngster, Belgrave watched his father perform at all of his usual Detroit haunts, including the iconic nightclub, Cliff Bell's. In January of this year, he began a Wednesday night residence at the club himself, featuring different lineups to hit all of the saxophonist's touchstones. Between the weekly performances there and his annual appearance at the Detroit Jazz Festival, he was once again walking in the proverbial footsteps of his legendary father. That may put eyes on him, but when he hits the bandstand, the wisdom he speaks with his horn will for better or worse prevail. What he has to say will be assisted by his father only in the work ethic and focus he enabled his son to employ. His musical destiny is self-determined by living life through music, by working hard with an open mind and soul. He has proven time and again as a young man that it means everything to him.

In 2021, Belgave was involved in a serious car accident and sustained injuries that disallowed him to play. He was to perform at the Detroit Jazz Festival that year and was more than disappointed that he could not play. As a student, opportunities of that magnitude were few and far between. He could, however, write music, and so he did. Guitarist Chuck Newsome commissioned him to write an arrangement for the Festival All-Star Band featuring Keyon Harrold barely a month after the accident. The fact that he is performing, feeling creative and inspired after that harrowing experience makes plain that music is the lifeblood that carries him forward in life, just as it did for his iconic father. His current performing sextet may be young, but all six musicians are up and coming jazz heavyweights in their own way. Bassist Jonathon Muir-Cotton and drummer Louis Jones III present a powerful presence on the back end. Trumpeter Allen Dennard and trombonist Michael Abbo are two of the city's best, with Abbo doubling on trumpet. Pianists Jordan Anderson and Brendon Davis complete the band, with Belgrave fronting on alto and tenor saxophones. The band performs Belgrave originals, as well as compositions contributed by band members. Belgrave is an excellent flutist as well, adding color and texture to the musical equation. The music is described as influenced by Chick Corea, Sam Rivers and Detroit drummer / composer Lawrence Williams. It is the intention of the band to connect the golden age of modern jazz with current modern improvisation.

Life may await Belgrave in New York, he must pay his dues as all jazz musicians do. But leave no doubt, the Detroit jazz community is a strength he takes with him as a talisman. While his career may take off into galaxies of opportunity, the deep emotion of humility and gratitude that he carries with him on stage in his hometown cannot be duplicated anywhere else. It's a Detroit thing you know—and will always be.

Comments