In 1989 I met Steven McRedmond. He was fighting to refocus a family property which was once the 1,000,000 sf Neuhoff meat packing facility on the banks of the Cumberland River in downtown Nashville. Long shut down, his vision was to bring in architects and create an arts centered community. A little backstory ... Nashville is a huge US transportation hub, a major university center, the state capitol, the country music center, etc. In any other US city, this site (with a panoramic view of the downtown skyline 10 minutes away) would have been scooped up years ago for development. Some of us were excited.
When our friends, Roger Spencer and Lori Mechem (acclaimed jazz players and session musicians) looked around for a space in which to create their Nashville Jazz Workshop, Steven said, "come on down". I just said let me build it and so we converted a 5000 sf area into teaching facilities, offices, a live showcase area called The Jazz Cave and a digital recording studio for capturing the live performances.
Today, they have built it into the go to place for jazz education and live concerts by world famous players. The songwriter and musician John Prine has his recording studio there at Neuhoff as does a local dance company. Its been five years since I last saw the place and I became reinspired to create a little art studio and loft there myself.
As a side note, Roger Spencer is going to be playing with the Time Jumpers. This has long been one of Nashville's best kept secrets ... a collection of some of the best western swing/bebop session players around who play for fun every Monday night at the Station Inn. Their regular bass player is with Allison Krause and since she and Robert Plant are doing another album, Roger is going to sub while they go on the proverbial road. The Time Jumpers recently got a great full page sendup in the New York Times. There goes the neighborhood.
