Music Neighbors aims to provide local, independent artists with the resources and opportunities to pursue careers in their artistry and uplift music from many different communities. This week for What Where When-sday, Jason Garriott, co-founder and executive director of Music Neighbors, joins us to discuss Celebrate Music City. Happening at New Heights Brewery on Sunday from 12-6pm, the free, all ages community festival will highlight Nashville’s Latin music scene featuring artists performing jazz, soul, rock and more
“We started a festival because music is tied really closely with culture,” noted Garriott. “If we can feature different music communities, then maybe we can bring people from around the city together at one spot to celebrate their love for live music, but also to give people a chance to see live music that they normally wouldn’t go see. At our event last year, we had several people come to us like, ‘I’ve never seen a rapper with a full band before and that was a different vibe and experience.’ I could see people getting turned onto a new style of music.”
“With Celebrate Music City, we wanted to feature artists from these different communities and celebrate those individual communities with the wide array of genres that are represented in them,” said Chelsea Garriott, co-founder and Operations Director at Music Neighbors. “Our Latin night will have anything from a folk artist, more traditional Latin music, to a rock artist. Trying to showcase that even if this is just a certain community, there’s a lot of genre representation within that community.”
A similar concept to Celebrate Music City is Music Neighbors’s Mix It Up showcases, happening at the 5 Spot on Saturday, June 14 and Wednesday, June 18, featuring artists from a wide array of genres sharing the stage and bringing different music communities together.
“We’ve been fortunate to have partners like the East Room and the 5 Spot because it’s a hard sell to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to have an singer/songwriter opening, go into a full rock band to R&B and then a Americana or Bluegrass band at the end,” Jason Garriott said. “That’s one of the things that we’re really trying to towards because like at WNXP, you have such a wide variety of music on this station and that’s what people’s Spotify playlist look like. People like a variety of music. That’s why all these amazing music festivals exist like Bonnaroo. Think about how wide of a spectrum of music you get. It’s such a good opportunity, in my opinion. Experiencing music that you’re not necessarily familiar with live is the best way to experience it.“
This week in live music:
Tonight (May 28) with Allison Russell at the Ryman. On Friday night (May 30), The Greeting Committee performs at The Blue Room and at the same venue on Saturday (May 31) Nashville band Brassville takes the stage. Wrap up the week on Tuesday (June 3) with Mei Semones at DRKMTTR.