Photo by Lionel Noah. Design by Jack Spatafora
The cover of the May 23, 2024 issue of Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
In 2019, the UACDC launched Uptown Music Festival at University Area Community Park with a mission to highlight the rich and diverse culture of the Tampa Bay area and continue raising money that ends up back in the community. Despite having to go on pause in 2020-2021 due to Covid-19, the festival has enjoyed success.
Now, Uptown is going downtown.
“As a result, the Uptown Music & Arts Festival received notice from the Tampa Bay cultural and public relations community, more specifically, Visit Tampa Bay. With that recognition and at their recommendation, the festival was moved to a new venue,” Mark Perry, festival co-founder, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
The company he created to help organize the festival, UEG Productions, Inc., has worked hard to adjust to the growth, and built teams to create the infrastructure in and around this year’s party. “We have had to learn and adapt to a never ending cascade of challenges,” Perry said.
“We know that music is the universal language that has the power to bring people together and unite them in mind, body, and soul,” Perry added. “It is our desire to focus this power for the sake of all those who simply need a hand up to conquer the barriers that separate them from their full potential and the dignity that comes from it.”
Perry and his UEG co-founders won’t be the only ones making their debut at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park this weekend.
“I think this might even be like the second or third festival I've done,” Dr. Alex Harris told CL, adding that he’s played abroad and across the country and even at Clearwater Jazz Holiday. “But this is the first time I'm doing a festival in Tampa.”
The timing couldn’t be better.
Harris’ debut album, Back To Us, was released last month by roots-centric Shanachie Records, which has handled work by King Tubby, Bunny Wailer, Rita Marley, and even the Soweto Gospel Choir, Los Jóvenes del Barrio and acid jazz band Liquid Soul.
No Depression, the U.S.’ quarterly journal of roots music, said that the 11-track outing “breathes new life into soul music.” A review puts Harris’ old-school R&B into the same box as Al Green’s work on Hi Records, and lauds the churchy, Hammond-drenched take on Solomon Burke’s “Millionaire.”
“It’s a stunner,” No Depression said about the LP. “Back to Us is another reminder that soul is not dead, it’s just been hiding in the shadows, waiting for the right time for a resurrection. Thanks to Alex Harris, that time is now.”
The aesthetic is no accident. The Georgia-born Harris is the son of a Pentecostal preacher and a student of work from the likes of Willie Neal Johnson & the Gospel Keynotes. He and his six siblings were in a family band. Harris can play any style of music, but eschews trends in favor of music he said reflects who he is.
“What I learned early on, and I attribute this to my upbringing, is to find the self and what my uniqueness I can bring to the table or bring to the space,” he told CL.
Themes of self-discovery, and self-love are baked into the record and Harris’ live set, which on Sunday will also feature his brother Zo, who is musical director for five-time Grammy-winner H.E.R. Having real humans play all of the instruments was paramount to the process, too.
“I think there's something to be said when you look at music that has and continues to stand the test of time. It was that energy that each person brought from their personal experience, whether it's something they lived through personally or observed,” Harris added.
He has a front row seat to lived experiences every day.
Like the UACDC, Harris’ non-music life also revolves around the community. In 2012, he founded the Arts Conservatory for Teens (ACT), which has grown its mission to serve underserved, at-risk students and communities to also provide equitable access to high level arts education for all students.
He travels the country to bring awareness to the cause and has recently started to focus on reminding policymakers that arts and culture are economic drivers in Florida. Harris noted that a report from the Americans for the Arts Action Fund points out that Florida’s arts and culture sectors generated $45.3 billion for the state. “That's 3.15% of Florida's GDP,” he said.
ACT has already impacted more than 5,000 teens and their families, and Harris hopes that the next phase of the group's growth will prepare students to be part of that creative economy, whether that’s onstage with a mic in hand or behind the scenes via production.
“We have an opportunity in our region to be the leading communities when it comes to creating one of the largest incubators and accelerator programs for young people to pursue these careers,” he added.
For now, however, Harris is hoping people bring their dancing shoes downtown this weekend. His set will draw a lot from the new album, and also include an Otis Redding and James Brown tribute, plus intimate moments not just for fans, but for those still getting to know Harris.
“I think it’s very important that people leave inspired, leave with something that they can take back home,” Harris said. “Something that resonates or reverberates in a way until the next time we can be together.”
Tickets to the Uptown Music & Arts Festival happening in Tampa's Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park on Saturday-Sunday, May 25-26 are still available and start at $90.
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