Blowing the Saxophone in Blowing Rock
Seth Carper Quartet at Meadowbrook Inn Sunday

By Jeff Eason

Appalachian State’s Hayes School of Music turns out hundreds of great graduates every May. Unfortunately for High Country music lovers, many of them leave the area and we never get to hear them play live music again.

Appalachian State University alum Seth Carper returns to the High Country with his talented quartet in tow for a concert at Meadowbrook Inn this Sunday, May 11.

That’s why it is so great to have one of ASU’s most successful musicians return to the High Country for a concert. Seth Carper, a talented saxophone player and music instructor now living in Charlotte, will perform in Blowing Rock this weekend.

The Seth Carper Quarter will perform at the Meadowbrook Inn on Sunday, May 11th starting at 7 p.m. The concert is part of this season’s Blowing Rock Jazz Society Second Sunday Concert Series. Tickets are $5 for students and $15 for the general public and are available at the door on a first come-first serve basis.

The Seth Carper Quartet features Carper on saxophone, flute and clarinet, Mike Holstein on upright acoustic bass, Mike Wood on drums, and Austin Johnson on piano.

Carper, who received a Bachelors degree in Music Education and Saxophone from ASU, also performs with the jazz bands Flow, the Piedmont Jazz Collective, the Seth Carper Big Band, the Christian Tamburr Quartet, Vector Erector, the Brian Sullivan Trio, and The Schnefel Five.

When Carper first graduated from ASU, he spent three years teaching music at Holmes Middle School in Eden, North Carolina. Deciding that he wanted to pursue playing and performing fulltime, he relocated to Charlotte and quickly became a mainstay of that area’s burgeoning jazz scene.

He has continued with his educational and teaching ambitions by becoming an adjunct faculty member at Davidson College, where he teaches saxophone and jazz improvisation.

In his short professional career, Carper has shared the stage with jazz greats Ernie Watts, Vincent Herring, Maynard Ferguson, Antonio Hart, Chris Murrell, Eddie Daniels and Duffy Jackson. As a sideman, and polished improvising and reading musician, Carper has performed with acts such as The Temptations, The Four Tops, The O’Jays, Lou Christie, The Drifters, The Legends of Beach, The Piedmont Wind Symphony of North Carolina, the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and the Reduced Opera Company of London.

With a smooth, melodic style that can take off into wild bursts of improvisation, Carper credits horn players such as Phil Woods, Kenny Garrett, Cannonball Adderly, Lee Konitz, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Stan Getz and Wayne Shorter as being influential to his playing.

As a composer, Carper retains a classy yet modernistic approach to jazz, letting the instruments breathe in wonderfully open, yet structured instrumental pieces.

For more information on Sunday’s Blowing Rock Jazz Society concert featuring the Seth Carper Quartet, contact the Meadowbrook Inn at (828) 295-4300.