‘11th & Grant’ gears up for fifth season

published on Monday, July 27, 2009 9:16 PM MDT

By GAIL SCHONTZLER Chronicle Staff Writer

The jazzy, jaunty sounds of a Dixieland band filled Studio A of the KUSM public television station Monday afternoon, bringing a bit of New Orleans magic to Montana.

“Isn’t it sweet?” Eric Funk said, during a break in the taping. “They’re having a blast.”

The six-man Last Chance Dixieland Jazz Band from Helena played tunes like “Trombone Rag” and “Creole Belle” under the hot TV studio lights in the Visual Communications Building on the Montana State University campus Monday.

“That’s a groovy little, butt-kickin’ clarinet,” Funk complimented clarinetist Ev Lynn, a retired dentist from Helena, whose fingers still fly up and down the keys at age 84.

“We’re the only band like this in the state,” said coronet player Don West, a hotel manager from Missoula, who founded it 26 years ago.

The public will get a chance to hear the infectious, toe-tapping Dixieland performance in January when it airs on the show “11th & Grant with Eric Funk.”

The award-winning Montana PBS music series began taping its fifth season Monday. It showcases the best musicians in Montana and brings them into viewers’ living rooms. It offers everything from jazz to country, Celtic to classical, blues to bluegrass, folk to rock and opera.

“There are world-class musicians in Montana,” said Funk, the show’s host and artistic director. “You don’t have to live in Nashville or New York.”

“11th & Grant” was just a gleam in the eye of producer Paul “Gomez” Routhier and development director Lisa Titus when they took Funk out to lunch several years ago at Casa Sanchez.

Funk’s Backburner jazz band had played a Christmas special that got a strong audience reaction, so they asked if he’d host a jazz series on Montana PBS.

“I said I was more interested in all Montana, all music,” Funk said. “I felt jazz was too limited. We’ve got such a deep music base in Montana.”

It’s been a great success, said Routhier. The show started with just three underwriters and today boasts 14. To win sponsors, Routhier said he just shows tapes of the show. “People go, ‘Wow.’”

“11th & Grant” has been nominated for a half-dozen Emmys, has won one, and won a NETA award for best PBS performance program in a small market, said Aaron Pruitt, the show’s executive producer and programming director for Montana PBS.

Montana PBS makes it work on a tight budget. The musicians perform for free, but get statewide exposure.

“It’s somewhat a labor of love,” Routhier said.

Funk seems to know or have played with half the musicians in Montana, either through his experience playing jazz piano, teaching music at MSU and Headwaters Academy or conducting the Helena Symphony for several years.

His new season’s lineup includes Ten Foot Tall and 80 Proof, a rock-country band from Bozeman; acoustic guitarist and singer Jeremy Morton of Bozeman; the Oltrogge Family from Absarokee, who play Peter, Paul and Mary hits; and the Meritage String Quartet, a classical string quartet from Bozeman. The shows will air from November to May, on Thursday and Saturday nights.

Funk said he has a folder 8 inches thick full of Montana musicians who’d like to perform, enough to fill the show for the next 10 years.

“We’re like a very good small family restaurant,” Routhier said. “We may not have the biggest menu, but what we have is exceptional.”

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