John Tesh: Big Band Live brings a career full circle

John Tesh is a man who knows what he wants. A positive thinker and music enthusiast, Tesh has built his life on a foundation of music and passion. It’s a spirit that bubbles forth from his voice as he speaks about his latest musical adventure, his John Tesh: Big Band Live tour.

The tour is stopping at the Freeman Stage at Bayside in Selbyville Friday, July 20, and Tesh is promising to bring his 12-piece band and a whole lot of love.

Tesh says he knew when he was in middle school that music was what he wanted to do. His parents forced him to play piano starting at the age of 6. He wasn’t all that crazy about it, but when he picked up a trumpet in middle school, it clicked. He wasn’t at all self-conscious about the fact that he was the skinny band geek in those days, although he knew it didn’t make him all that popular at the time. He loved being part of a group, and more than anything, he loved to perform.

Back in those days, when he was a child, if he wasn’t playing in a rock band, he was the one in front of the camera, an old super-8 mm camera. When his parents decided he was to go to college to study chemistry and physics, Tesh was perplexed, but dutiful. After giving it a good old college try for two years, he switched majors to music and video, and he has never looked back. It seems those forced piano lessons had a lasting effect.

“I was in college at North Carolina State,” he recalls, “and I got a weekend job working on the radio and another developing news film.” That was the simple foundation Tesh would build his life on. Before he knew it, he was on the radio and then later in front of the camera.

Now, four Emmy wins, two Grammy nominations and many years later, he’s still on the radio with his own radio show, “Intelligence for Your Life,” carried on more than 380 stations nationwide. On the weekends, though, he says it’s all about his big band project.

He approached this project like he has everything else in life, with a lot of passion. Though it may seem out of left field for those who have followed his career, Tesh insists the big band project follows a natural progression. He’s coming back to his roots because this was the music he listened to and played as a child growing up on Long Island.

Tesh is excited about the opportunity to bring the music he loved as a child to a new generation, including his own children. “I live in a house where my kid listens to Kanye West or Eminem,” Tesh says, “but then she’ll also listen to Nat King Cole.” The sound of the big band is different than what today’s youth are listening to on the radio, but Tesh said that is what will ultimately attract them to it.

Because the concert is meant to be more intimate than other concert experiences, John Tesh: Big Band Live and plays to venues that hold 2,000 to 3,000 people. As for the songs they will perform, patrons can expect the band to open up for soloists and to expand songs for piano playing and ad-libbing. Tesh also takes time between songs to talk to the audience about living a life with passion and doing something you love.

John Tesh says the big band project has helped him come full circle in an expansive entertainment career; he always knew music was his calling, and he seeks to share his passion while inspiring audiences to find their own.

You can see John Tesh: Big Band Live at the Freeman Stage at Bayside in Selbyville at 8 p.m. Friday, July 20, part of a special concert series. For more information go to www.freemanstage.org or call 302 436-3015.