Celebration of the Arts (COTA) Festival: 36 years of Poconos jazz

When post-bop pianist and vocalist Bob Dorough played Philly in July, he talked about three things: his new Duets album; the Delaware Water Gap area of Pennsylvania, where he lives; and the Celebration of the Arts Jazz Festival (COTA), which supports jazz and educational outreach in the Poconos. COTA's 36th annual jazzfest recommences Friday through Sunday, with Dorough's neighbors displaying the tricks of their trade.

"Long ago, a friend there offered me a job at the Mount Airy Lodge, a honeymoon haven that wanted us to play dances," Dorough says. "Thankfully, we snuck some jazz in there because I dug the environment. The Poconos reminded me of where I grew up in Arkansas. We turned the whole area into a jazz haven and have had a hot community up there ever since, with guys like Al Cohn, Herbie Green, and Phil Woods."

Woods couldn't agree more. Not only does the saxophonist/composer consider his adopted home "the jazz capital of the world," he fondly recalls moving to the Poconos (with a layover in New Hope) thanks to his pal Dorough, and the lure of steady work at the area's lodges and bars like Deer's Head Inn. "The lodges would get big-name acts, and if they needed horns, I always got called," Woods says.

To celebrate the Poconos jazz scene, Woods and several other players, such as area trombonist Rick Chamberlain (Zen for Primates), started COTA and its jazz festival, with Dorough as its earliest advocate.

"I went from sleeping on my drummer's floor in the Poconos" - that would be Bill Goodwin, whose ensemble plays the COTA festival this year - "to starting a tradition that's been going on for 36 years," Woods says. "We must be doing something right."

While the 2013 festival offers up locals like reed man Dave Liebman and out-of-town buddies like saxophonist Joe Lovano and vocalist Judi Silvano, it also welcomes the area's music students.

In 1981, Woods got Poconos high schools into the act. "We were enjoying a modicum of success, so I wrote teachers and discussed getting kids involved," he says. Thus the COTA Cats was born, a jazz big band made of local high school players.

"Our guys would mentor them," Woods says. "We'd go to rehearsals, even commission pieces exclusively for the kids to play. Still do."

Dorough, sitting out this year's festival, proudly remembers perhaps his most prominent student: vocalist Nellie McKay, who performs on Duets. "Nellie was a COTA Cat," he says.

"I was a COTA Cat, too," says Lauren Chamberlain, violinist (and daughter of Rick) and current COTA board member. "The festival has forever been a worthwhile enterprise for our area's jazz vets as well as us kids."

Where students are concerned, Woods and his COTA partners look for new musical challenges. "That's the future for jazz and this community," he says. "I sleep a little better knowing these kids love what they're doing. The festival has become a badge of honor for them to play, where cats like Zoot Sims and yours truly performed," Woods says with a laugh. "It's become a rite of passage."