ABOVE: From left to right – Drummer James “P.J.” Spraggins, Eric Essix and bassist Kelvin Wooten (Liesa Cole courtesy of Eric Essix)

Promoting a new album, the Eric Essix Move Trio has been running all over the country and all over town. But they come to a stop this weekend at their home base in Birmingham for the Eric Essix Jazz Escape.

The Jazz Escape, taking place during the long Labor Day weekend at Ross Bridge Resort and Spa, will not only promote the new album featuring Essix, Grammy-nominated keyboardist and bassist Kelvin Wooten and drummer James “P.J.” Spraggins, but it will do so in a luxurious setting for his fans, and at the same time, provide a way to give something back.

Eric Essix from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.

“The purpose for creating the event was to raise funds for the foundation that I also started last year, the Eric Essix Foundation for the Arts and Education,” Essix said earlier this week. “We wanted to make this event our primary fundraiser for the year. And I thought that this was a good way to continue what I had been doing for the past several years out at the Preserve Jazz Festival but make it a little bit smaller, more intimate event and also a more travel-focused event.”

Essix, an acclaimed guitarist and member of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, should know what traveling fans want. He tours the world himself as a respected musician – aside from his day job as program manager for UAB’s Alys Stephens Center.

Having just returned from a series of CD release shows for the trio’s self-titled album, shows that took him around the country and through several stops in Europe, Essix is focused on bringing fans to Birmingham. He started the Jazz Escape last year.

“There is a significant population or demographic that would travel to these jazz festivals all around and they happen all around the world,” he said. “And we wanted to get into that rotation with some people who are looking for other venues, other festivals to participate in.”

(Liesa Cole courtesy of Eric Essix)

What he’s calling a “music and travel experience” will feature his trio performing new music and fan favorites from his catalog under a 6,500-square-foot tent on the terrace of the resort. With a seating capacity of no more than 600, Essix expects the Jazz Escape to be a more intimate setting.

“Everybody that I talked to last year was commenting about how the feel of the thing was just really relaxed and laid back and it was our intention for everyone to kind of recharge and prepare for work after that long weekend,” he said. “A nice little min- vacation.”

Essix said the new album represents a rebranding of sorts with a stripped down band. “I’ve worked in the same setting and ensemble for so many years, I’m trying to do something kind of different,” he said, admitting that he wasn’t absolutely sure how people would like the new pared down sound.

But he’s been happy with the results. “The reception has just been overwhelming. A lot of people really, really like it.”

Essix said he expects the Jazz Escape to have meaningful impact on the work of his foundation.

Giving back

Essix said that with multiple albums behind him, he feels the need to give something back, and that’s why he started the foundation.

“Making records and touring and all that stuff is great. I love it. It’s provided me a good living and a great career,” he said. “But I think what I decided a few years ago was that I wanted to leave a different kind of legacy.”

For more than 20 years, he’s gone into schools and performed and run workshops and clinics, but, he said, “For a lot of that time, I took it for granted. It was something that I wanted to do, and I realize it was important. But it wasn’t as important to me as it is now.

“I’ll tell you why. I think part of it is having my own son starting to come up and … watching him grow up, seeing what’s important to him and the things that impact his life and it began to make me think,” Essix said. “He talks about people that have influenced and made an impact on him and I began to think, ‘I have an opportunity to do the same thing.’ And I have been doing it for all this time but it was not as important to me as I think it should have been.”

Focusing on young people, Essix started his foundation, which has not only conducted clinics and performances for middle and high school students in Alabama, but elsewhere in the country. The foundation’s web page notes that the focus is “teaching the history and development of jazz and the important part that music plays in the American experience.”

The foundation, partnered with the Alabama Council on the Arts, is associated with the Artists Touring Program, which takes musicians into rural areas, like the Black Belt, “some of the underserved counties in this state where young people would probably not get to see a live jazz performance or a live act at their school or professional musicians coming in to talk to them about career occupations and education,” Essix said.

“Not only do we do high schools and middle schools but we also do libraries. We’ve done churches. We’ve also done juvenile detention facilities.”

Essix said the foundation may be “the most rewarding” aspect of his career.

Eric Essix from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.

“At some point, when I’m not able to rip and run around the country and tour and make records, I wanted to be able to focus on doing something that would help inspire young people to do exactly what I did – have the courage to do it and then know how to go about doing it,” Essix said. “I feel like I have something to offer. It’s more important to me now to do that than to make records, and do things that further my own career. I want to do things that will help young people and I think that, in doing that, you really further the music, in another sense, to a whole ‘nother generation. That’s my goal now, I think it’s probably the most important thing I do.”

The Eric Essix Jazz Escape will take place Sept. 4-6 at Ross Bridge Resort & Spa. For more information about the Eric Essix Foundation for the Arts and Education, visit the Eric Essix Foundation.