Knox County Public Library is pleased to present Music on the Mezzanine, Life in the Key of Blues, featuring world-renowned jazz pianist and composer, Eric Reed. The lecture/performance series delves into the history of blues over the course of four subsequent Sundays from 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. (January 22, January 29, February 5, and February 12.) The public is invited to attend the free series, held at Lawson McGhee Library (500 W. Church Ave.).

Blues is the music of hope and faith, of sadness and loss. It is the foundation on which all American popular music is built from gospel to jazz to rock ‘n roll to hip hop. “Without the blues, life would just be gray,” Eric Reed says.

Music on the Mezzanine is made possible by an Arts Build Communities grant from Arts & Culture Alliance and Tennessee Arts Commission.

Eric Reed is a jazz pianist and composer who toured briefly with Wynton Marsalis (1987, 1990, 1991, 1992 – 1995). He worked with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (1996-1998) and released albums from 1990 – 2014. Three of his albums have charted on the Billboard’ Top Jazz Album Chart, with 1998’s Pure Imagination peaking at No. 8. Reed has also worked as a composer scoring music for films including Life featuring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. Reed credits the public library for helping him explore recordings of great jazz pianists saying, “My neighborhood library had all kinds of hip jazz albums and I was there every day checking them out. Everything was there: Ahmad Jamal, Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, McCoy Turner — it was incredible! By the time I was thirteen, I didn’t realize it, but I had digested all of the standard jazz recordings that working musicians were expected to know.”