BRADY FLANIGANStaff Writer

The night after the Harvest Moon at South Jackson Performing Arts Center. Fall closing in and a full brass band. Jazz singers and the moon high overhead like a cigarette burn in a black ashtray. Cool air and cold ice cream. This was 2024’s annual A Midsummer Night’s Swing Ice Cream Social–a hobby of JSPAC’s for more than ten years. What’s it about jazz under the firmament that keeps bringing Tullahoma back year after year? What’s it about brass? If a great Woodstock guitar flows in and out with a sound like the tide, then a truly great jazz band is like a house fire–smoke fuming from everywhere–filling up lungs and guts until there’s hardly anything to breathe. It’s a burning sensation, and the singer is the only person with a firehose. The pipes open up just before the house is consumed with flames–a singer’s wild rising sound–the water turns on, the song ends, and the fire goes out. The crowds on the lawn outside South Jackson cheer. The band turns the pages on their sheet music, and everyone readies for the next spit of flames. 

When the band took a break even the loudest sounds became silent. The crowd went back to laughing and murmuring. The cars on South Jackson Street were probably rushing by with the sound of a railroad, but it was all invisible. After hearing the South Jackson Street Band wailing Nat King Cole’s “Orange Colored Sky”, there was nothing left happening in the world but the last drops of music metabolizing in the brain and the liver. Kids were playing football in the grass while mom and dad danced on a concrete stage between the band and the lawn. Peggy Burton and Samantha Watters, the evening’s vocalists, cradled the crowd in their hand with every note. It doesn’t seem impossible these songbirds are sirens–millennia old, the same kind Homer spoke of in The Odyssey, but sirens that over the years became bored of crashing ships into the shore. Nowadays they get their kicks dancing couples to death. Because many of those who stepped onto the dance floor didn’t seem to quit until the show was over. 

It was Karen and Kenny Cobb’s first experience with A Midsummer Night’s Swing. “I’m ashamed to say it; because I’ve lived here a long time, but this is the first time we’ve been. It’s shockingly fun listening to them. They’re amazing. And Samantha, we’ve watched her grow up to be a beautiful voice. And Peggy is like an icon nowadays. She’s been doing this, among 50,000 other things, bringing opportunities like this to all of us in Tullahoma for 50 or 60 years. Have you stood next to her? I’m always surprised that she’s a tiny little creature. Because I’m always thinking of her as this greater than life thing,” said Karen. Kenny and Karen barely paused all evening. When the band hit intermission at 8 p.m., they were sweatier than a marathon through the jungle, but it was obvious they weren’t finished dancing. The jazz trance was still in their blood. It was personal. The performers would collapse before they would. 

The band was set up on the front steps of SJPAC, hidden from the road by the trees. High above them at the top of the building there were three stained glass windows throwing red, yellow, green lights out over the crowd. Inside the theater actors were practicing for November’s Grease the Musical. There was something happening in every direction. SJPAC Executive Director Greg Gressel and his team were set up selling tickets and solo cups of wine. Kids were lined up buying scoops of ice cream. At the edge of the crowd Tullahoma Mayor Lynn Sebourn sat with his daughter watching the scene unfold. “I love it. I come every year if I can. I’ve been involved in a lot of South Jackson stuff over the years. Peggy taught all my girls to sing.” he said. All around him couples still danced. The night wasn’t over yet. The crowd was clinging to their last cups of wine and ice cream. Everyone was holding their breath until that last fantastic note. 

By the time the sound faded and the band was packing, the crowd was still hanging around. The wind was blowing the last whiffs of music. People spoke in low voices as they gathered their chairs and prepared for a disappointing drive home listening to FM radio. When the lawn was cleared it felt like just another night on the calendar. It’s a kind of rhythm Tullahoma has come to expect–dependable and as regular as the seasons, pulling everyone back together again under the stars.