Concurrence

CONCURRENCE is the beat-driven, jazz, and improvisational music and research collective founded by pianist and keyboardist Paul Horton and bassist Greg Bryant. Live and on record, Concurrence's high-energy, "no prisoners" musical language embraces aspects of the jazz tradition while reaching forward to speak to the energy of the times. This musical attitude has earned the group "Best Jazz Band" honors by the Nashville Scene, the leading arts paper in the band's native city of Nashville, Tennessee.

Bryant and Horton began their band in North Nashville in the early 2000s as they played in coffee houses on what was left of Jefferson Street, the city's nerve center of the Black American community. This community was carved up by the construction of Interstate 40 in the 1960s and 1970s. Six hundred and twenty Black homes were demolished, as well as sixteen entire blocks of stores, churches, entertainment spots, and schools.

This destruction traces to the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, which established the Interstate System that today crisscrosses the United States. The system's construction came with devastating effects. From New York to Chicago, Miami to Los Angeles, authorities routed the interstates through Black American centers of cultural and economic activity.

Concurrence's new album, Indivisible, represents the band's most ambitious project yet: music that sheds light on this overlooked chapter in American history, one which irrevocably altered Black and Brown communities across the country. The band draws energy and inspiration from nearly two decades of gigging along with archival research and speaking with local historians. As a result, Concurrence musically highlights the economic and artistic resilience of Black communities everywhere as they bring attention not only to the story of their own artistic home in North Nashville but to similar cases all around the United States.

As Concurrence headed across town in 2017 to the then-new venue Rudy's Jazz Room, the band quickly set up a bi-monthly, late-night residency that caught on quickly. The band also began touring with a rotating cast of amazing drummers and percussionists, including Marcus Finnie, Derrek Phillips, Aaron Smith, and Tommy Crane. Concurrence has also opened for Cory Henry's Funk Apostles, Rebirth Brass Band, and Alabama Shakes.