JAZZ PIANIST TOUTS COMMUNITY CONCERTS

Don't expect a "stodgy, stuffed shirt" performance from the Mac Frampton trio when it plays in Cape Girardeau March 15.

Jazz pianist Mac Frampton says his goal is entertainment, pure and simple.

With Frampton on piano, accompanied by bass and percussion, the Mac Frampton Jazz Trio will perform March 15 at 8 p.m. at Academic Auditorian at Southeast Missouri State University.

Southeast Concert Association members and SEMO students with current ID are admitted free along with children 12 and under when accompanied by an adult. General admission is $10 for adults and $7 for students.

In a telephone interview, Frampton said Community Concerts often battle a perception that the performances are a "stodgy, stuffed shirt kind of thing."

Community Concerts, an international organization designed to bring live performing artists to communities, has been around for about 70 years. "When they first started, they tended to be very classical in nature and tended to be for the ladies of the Junior Aid," Frampton said.

The nature of the concerts has changed.

"The concerts are far more eclectic," he said. "The average community wants and needs certain amount of classical entertainment, but has a place for lighter attractions and entertainment, unabashed and unashamed show biz.

"My goal and my philosophy has always been to leave my audience feeling happier when they leave than when they arrived. I'm not looking to give them a life changing experience. I try as best I can to entertain and make audiences happy."

Frampton has been performing since he was 3 years old. The son of a minister, he had lots of chances for an audience. He began formal piano lessons at age 5. "While I was studying classically, I was also improvising, playing by ear, picking up tunes off the radio."

"Early on I had all these opportunities to be a live performer, doing my own little pops concerts," Frampton recalled. "All along I kept doing my classical training."

After high school, Frampton continued his musical education at Erskine College in his home state of South Carolina and at the Cincinnati Conservatory, where he received his masters and doctoral degrees.

Recognition with a medal in the Van Cliburn Competition established him as a classical pianist. The competition also helped set his course toward jazz and pop performance.

"I was in the Van Cliburn Competition, and although I won a medal, I was not one of the top winners," he said.

At a cocktail party following the competition, Frampton sat down at the piano and improvised some music.

"In walks Van Cliburn," Frampton said. "And he walked over the the piano. We all held in in such awe and respect, we would never do anything we felt wasn't up to his standards. I figured, hearing me play that pops stuff, he was going to be glad I didn't win.

"Quite the contrary. He was so obviously enjoying what I was doing. When I finished he told me it I was really remarkable."

That encouragement prompted Frampton to look toward a career performing jazz and pops.

Frampton admitted that the work was easier to land for a pops performer.

He has been performing professionally for 21 years. For the past five years, he has been affiliated with the Community Concerts organization.

"I've been doing about 40 concerts a year all over the country and it has been terrific."

He has performed in every state but two -- Alaska and Vermont.

Frampton said his performances, like his music, are often spontaneous. He does feature some of America's great piano performers including Scott Joplin and Jerry Lee Lewis.

"I'm doing some Gershwin and also some movie things -- James Bond and Disney stuff."

Frampton claims his official career was launched in Missouri. During the summers of graduate school, he landed his first full-time performing job at an outdoor theater on the Lake of the Ozarks in Laurie, Mo.

"It was a total wonderful fantasy life for me."

In a small-world turn of events, Frampton said that his wife's grandparents, Bayard Columbus Stafford and Maude English, were married in Cape Girardeau in 1919 and lived here for many years.