Jazz is, at its core, a collaborative artform. Sure, one person can get up on a stage, stand under a spotlight, and create sounds from their instrument of choice that move the soul. But when you make that solo performance a duet, a trio or a quartet, the magic seems to grow with every added musician.
Suddenly the sound that one player lays down becomes a framework—guidelines added to and elaborated upon by the musicians around them. Each makes their mark, sets their own tone, but working in tandem with everyone around them. What was just the music of one becomes the symphony of the entire ensemble.
James Berry, the Director of Fine Arts at Hilton Head Christian Academy
What applies to starting a jam session can also apply to starting a jazz camp.
For example, when you see what the Hilton Head Jazz Camp has become—a cultural touchstone in the jazz world that brings together students from all over the world and faculty representing some of the genre’s most exciting players—you see that collaborative beauty.
But someone had to lay the framework for that jam. And in the case of Hilton Head Jazz Camp, that would be our island’s own James Berry. The Director of Fine Arts for Hilton Head Christian Academy launched “the little jazz camp that could” 12 years ago, never dreaming it would become what it has.
“It’s become much larger than myself,” Berry said. “But it really started with this vision of just getting students excited about music.”
That first camp replicated something Berry had launched while teaching in New Hampshire. The son of a conductor and a vocalist, he had started teaching music shortly after graduating from Massachusetts’ Gordon College. His first foray into camping, the Mountaintop Music Jazz Camp, gave his students another avenue for polishing their craft. His partner in the camp was his friend Josh Kravette, whose father had been a huge mentor to Berry.
“After grad school, I moved to Hilton Head Island for the job at Hilton Head Christian Academy,” Berry said. “Not long after, I called Josh and asked, ‘Wanna do it again?’”
Berry and Kravette’s first Hilton Head Jazz Camp was an inauspicious start to the massive event the camp would one day become, with just nine students. But like a great jazz performance growing with every musician on stage, this duet would find support when Bob and Lois Masteller happened to show up for the end-of-camp concert.
“It was crazy timing,” Berry said. The couple, musical royalty on the island thanks to what they’d created with The Jazz Corner, threw their support behind the fledgling jazz camp. Crucially, they pledged the support of The Junior Jazz Foundation. This gave Berry everything he needed to elevate the camp. Well, almost everything.
“That second year, I was selling something that essentially didn’t exist yet,” he said with a laugh. “I had the vision of what I wanted it to be, but we had never been there yet. And so, when we got to June and I only had maybe seven kids registered for the July camp, I thought it wasn’t going to happen.”
And here we see the power of collaboration. The support of the Mastellers allowed him to bring in faculty, including Chris Russell, Eric Jones, Dave Elliott, David Carter, who helped find more eager campers. When camp opened in July, they had 25 students. The next year, it was 50.
If that seems to give enormous credit to the faculty, know that Berry would be the first to agree. With each year, he was able to add more and more, attracting talent he never would have dreamed of. Australian vocalist Nicki Parrott, who has shared the stage with names like Les Paul, was among the first. Since then, players like South Carolina Jazz Ambassador Mark Rapp on trumpet, Grammy nominated pianist Kevin Bales and YouTube sensation Aimee Nolte have come on board.
“One thing I’m really proud of is our faculty. They’re unbelievable,” Berry said. “I mean, we have a couple who have been nominated for Grammys. I can’t even believe sometimes that they’re all in the same place at the same time.”
As the camp has grown, topping out at 95 students before Berry decided to scale back, they’ve only added to the experience. A partnership with USCB allowed students to experience dorm life during camp, and you’d be hard pressed to walk into The Jazz Corner or Red Fish during camp and not see a few campers in attendance.
Hilton Head Christian Academy students rehearse for the Savannah Jazz Festival on a Thursday evening in September.
“And it’s life changing for these kids,” Berry said, “even students that aren’t going to college for music. We have a lot of students who are actually gigging musicians now, in fact.”
Many of them you’ve probably heard. If you’ve enjoyed a show by Zach Stevens, The Nice Guys or Native, you’re listening to musicians trained at the Hilton Head Jazz Camp.
“It’s not like we can take credit, necessarily, for that,” Berry said. “For me, it’s just a really awesome way to get back to what I love about music. It’s just such a great week.”
And 12 years on, that great week has grown in ways Berry could never have imagined. To hear him tell it, he was merely the first one to start the tune. What it became is truly music to his ears.
“One of the things we always stress is that there’s no ego. We’re all here to build each other up. Whatever level you come in at, we want you to leave at a higher level and feel great about it,” Berry said. “And the faculty that I’ve chosen over the years all have that same kind of philosophy. What it’s become is just awesome.”
