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Music is part of how this district sounds. On a First Friday it comes out of open doors, patios and small rooms up and down the street, and a lot of it is made by people who teach as well as play.
The Musician's Residence is named for all of them.
Of those musicians, we recognize Lewis Nash, a Phoenix-born drummer who has played on more than 500 albums, and whose name is on The Nash, the jazz club and education center a short walk away at 110 E Roosevelt Street.2
Lewis Nash was born in Phoenix on the thirtieth of December, 1958.1
He became one of the most recorded drummers of his generation. Modern Drummer once put the count at over four hundred records; The Nash now puts it at more than 500 albums, including ten Grammy winners.12 The list of people who called him is the list of people who defined post-war jazz.
But the part of his story that belongs on this block is the part where it came home.
In 2012, a jazz performance and education center opened at 110 E Roosevelt Street and was named for him by Jazz in AZ.1 It is still there, still teaching, a short walk from this door.
In 2017 he joined the jazz studies faculty at Arizona State University as the Bob and Gretchen Ravenscroft Professor of Practice in Jazz. Before that he was part of the first jazz studies faculty at The Juilliard School, and he spent twenty years on the faculty of the Vail Jazz Workshop.2 In early 2021 the university established the Lewis Nash Scholarship Endowment, awarded annually to an ASU jazz performance student.1
Lewis is based between New York City and Phoenix.
The Nash calls itself a concert lounge with a cocktail bar and a learning space for all. It presents live music close to 300 nights a year: jazz shows, matinees, late-night sets and jam sessions.3
The other half of the room is school. There are youth ensembles, classes that introduce students to improvisation, adult classes and private lessons, a summer camp, and outreach programs in schools across the Valley. The club's education work runs through the John Dawson Jazz Education Center.23
DownBeat Magazine has repeatedly named it one of the top jazz venues in the world, which is a remarkable thing to say about a room on Roosevelt Street.2
That is the real Lewis Nash story on this block. A Phoenix kid left, played on more than 500 albums with people like Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins and Wynton Marsalis, and the place that carries his name is where the next Phoenix kid learns to count in.2
We could have called it Unit 3.
Instead it is The Musician's Residence, named for the musicians who give this district its sound, and recognizing a Phoenix kid whose career went everywhere and whose legacy sits over on Roosevelt Street, in a room full of people learning to play.
On a First Friday you can hear music from almost anywhere on this block. That is not an accident of programming. It is the result of people like Lewis Nash deciding Phoenix was worth coming back to.
When you support local artists, you are supporting your neighbors and your neighborhood.
A Storied Series by Bri Roche, founder of Roche Home Co.