Youngstown band to play Kent’s Listen! Music Fest

Photo courtesy of Jim DeCapua

Credit: DKS Editors

The jamming guitar, pulsating bass, pounding drums, seductive saxophone, melodic keyboard and occasional flute that usually echo through streets of downtown Youngstown will be heard in Kent at this Saturday’s Listen! music festival.

“Kent’s music scene is really starting to develop with some people who are really loyal to going out and listening to live music,” said Fred Burazer, saxophonist, flutist and vocalist of Jones for Revival.

Jones for Revival has been playing together for almost four years and has had more Ohioans take notice over the past year.

Guitar and vocalist Jim DeCapua said the band has noticed the last few Youngstown shows have awarded them with more fans.

DeCapua also said he thinks most of the recent success of Jones for Revival is due to the band’s festival, Jones Fest. The festival was held in downtown Youngstown last June and brought together more than 2,500 people.

“We wanted to put together a festival from the beginning,” DeCapua said. “We finally got together with some people who were involved with that kind of thing downtown, and we made it happen.”

Since the festival, the band has been playing all over Ohio, from Cincinnati to Kent, and into Pennsylvania. While the band enjoys playing at the occasional bar, members agreed that festivals fit Jones For Revival’s style far more.

“It’s definitely good music to have while you are partying,” DeCapua said. “It’s good chill, laid back, ‘jammy,’ jazzy, funky, groovy music.”

A prominent jam-band style overshadows a lot of the other genres in which Jones For Revival could be categorized, but Burazer said the band’s music is a “melting pot of different genres.”

This melting pot may be a result of each member’s different tastes in music and their knowledge of the instruments. There are five members of Jones for Revival: DeCapua, Burazer, bass and vocalist Matt Hahn, keyboardist and vocalist Drew Ridgley and percussionist Gino West.

While Burazer studied music and is now a band director for Jefferson Area Schools in Ashtabula, Hahn has never had a bass lesson in his life.

“It’s good to have a music director in the band, because if we have any questions he can answer them pretty quickly,” DeCapua said.

Musical theory knowledge, and the lack thereof, make an interesting mixture that can be found in each of the band’s songs. While some songs have many lyrics and an easier melody, others have very little lyrics, with complex melodic structures and harmonization.

“Every song that we have kind of has a little taste here and there of some of our favorite artists, and each song in itself is different, too,” Burazer said

Jones For Revival has found a captivating medium between the different talents each player brings to the band, allowing each song to speak and stand on its own.

The members have a hard time agreeing on what is considered good music, having to compare Matchbox 20 to Phish.

“I like the radio-friendly stuff,” Hahn said. “I don’t want to say anything to embarrass myself.”

With all differences aside, Jones for Revival members agree that making it big is a lot of work and while each would like it, they would be perfectly satisfied with obtaining even a little national fame.

“I don’t think anybody (in the band) is trying to make it huge, like MTV huge,” DeCapua said. “Just accomplish some sort of small, national fame.”

DeCapua hopes that Jones For Revival will achieve this goal by starting in Ohio and moving westward. Yet, Burazer just wants to keep making fans happy – no matter where the band is.

“Even if we don’t make it huge and make millions of dollars,” he said, “that’d be OK as long as we get to go out and play on the weekends and people enjoy themselves when they come out.”

Contact all correspondent Pamela Crimbchin at [email protected].