New Exhibit at Fairfield University’s Di-Menna-Nyselius Library: Seize the Beat: Music and Race in the Deep South

New Exhibit at Fairfield University Di-Menna-Nyselius Library: Seize the Beat: Music and Race in the Deep South

Professor Brian Torff is sharing research trip photos, artifacts, and recollections in a library exhibit that will run through May 19. A concert of classic and original music inspired by his travels will be performed on Feb. 22

Seize the Beat: Music and Race in the Deep South
DiMenna-Nyselius Library • 1073 North Benson Road, Fairfield, CT 06824
January 16, 2024 – May 19, 2024

Brian Torff exhibition at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut — Brian Torff photo via Fairfield University

An exhibit featuring research trip photos, artifacts, and recollections by Brian Torff, professor of visual and performing arts and co-director of Fairfield’s Music program, is currently on display at the Fairfield University’s DiMenna-Nyselius Library.

Seize the Beat: Music and Race in the Deep South opened on Jan. 16 and will be on view until May 19.

To coincide with the exhibit, on Thursday, Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. The Brian Torff Group will perform a concert of classic and original music inspired by Torff’s travels. The performance will take place in the DiMenna-Nyselius Library’s Multimedia Room 101.

“On the Harvard ‘On the Road to Civil Rights’ tour I took, some places were so gripping they rendered us speechless,” said Torff. “This trip changed my life and my music. I now draw on these influences for they have become friends and sources of inspiration. You can hear the music in these photos.”

After a career as a jazz bassist and composer that began in the mid 1970s, Torff now creates music as a songwriter, guitarist and vocalist. He has played with Frank Sinatra, George Shearing, Mary Lou Williams, Erroll Garner, Stephane Grappelli, and Marian McPartland among others. Torff now focuses on acoustic guitar, harmonica, loop pedal, and his upright stick bass to create a different sound.

As a professor of music at Fairfield University since 1993, his research trips to the deep South have impacted the lyrical stories he tells through his art.

Torff’s jazz memoir is called In Love With Voices. His most recent book, Seize the Beat: The Evolution of American Music, is used in his classes on American popular music. “I love working with words,” he said, “so songwriting was a logical next step.”

Combining on his experience in jazz, blues, and rock with a country-folk influence, Torff feels that “we need to create new musical categories.”

His band, The Brian Torff Group — with Wes Lewis, tenor saxophone, and Ryan Sands, drums — plans to film YouTube music videos this year. “I hope that our music,” said Torff, “is a soundtrack to an American road trip, past and present.”

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