FOLIO
The alleyway that connects many of the buildings that comprise The Elbow, the boundaries of which are Bay Street to Adams Street and Main Street to Liberty Street, is a happening spot. The high building walls, festooned with street art of all ilk, serve as the perfect backdrop for the funky (in a good way) alley that is ideal for exemplifying the Jacksonville music scene. It makes sense, then, that two of The Elbow pioneers, Grant Nielsen and Trey Hebron, decided to create The Alley Sessions, a multimedia musical venue showcasing some of Northeast Florida’s finest up-and-coming musicians.
Broadcast and promoted through The Elbow’s webpage and social media reach, The Alley Sessions gathered a few great bands that were about to show up on the city’s collective radar and produced high-quality web content, with interlacing interviews and live performance, all set against the aforementioned walls of The Elbow alley.
According to Nielsen, he and Hebron had wanted to curate their own content for The Elbow ever since they’d gotten together to create it. “We needed to fund it to get it up and running, but we were never thinking about making money with The Alley Sessions,” says Nielsen. “We just wanted to do whatever we wanted in order to have The Elbow’s unique voice come across.”
That voice was interpreted by the three local acts featured in the sessions. The kickoff episode in November featured local hip hop group ND 20/20, followed in December by Jacksonville instrumental fusion band Tambor. The upcoming final episode, featuring the electronica trio Tomboi, airs in January. Nielsen explains that all three acts were chosen simply because he and Hebron liked their music and wanted to get more exposure for the selected acts.
Filmed over a scorching two days back in July, the production was an all-out professional affair, with five cameras, cranes, dollies, makeup, and catering. Nielsen, owner of an entertainment media and design marketing agency, describes it as a full movie set.
“It was important for us to use all of the space in the alley in order to visually tell the story of the music being performed,” explains Nielsen. “The length of time between filming and release was deliberate in order to accommodate post-production editing and animation. We also wanted to temper saturation, allowing each episode to live in the spotlight for a time.”
The project came to life with the financial backing of the Downtown Vision Inc., in the form of a grant awarded to The Elbow to artistically highlight Downtown Jacksonville. The Downtown Investment Authority, also standing to gain from a vibrant and exposed Downtown, stepped in as well to cover costs. Everyone who worked on the production of the Alley Sessions was paid in order to further prove that the professional sound, film, and music industries in Jacksonville can provide gainful employment when supported by the community.
As for the shelf life of The Alley Sessions, Nielsen says that they will live on in perpetual digital archive, but that the project itself was created as a short-run series due to the limitations of the budget. “It’s a ton of work to produce high-quality content and there are a lot of working pieces in order to make it happen,” says Nielsen. “If a cash injection arrived for the series, we’d certainly love to continue it. We’re not actively pitching it, but our ears are open.”
Nielsen is comfortable with the brief run of The Alley Sessions because it allowed him and Hebron to do it on their own terms, and with their own vision intact. According to Nielsen, if someone decides to buy a block of shows, he will aim to ensure that the vision and voice of The Elbow is unchanged and that Jacksonville and its vibrant art scene are showcased accordingly.
“My wife and I travel all the time,” Nielsen says, “and everywhere we go, I have my notebook with me. I take notes on all that is going on in other cities and think about these happenings in context to Jacksonville. I notice more and more that we have it all here and that we should focus on letting people learn more and more about what is going on.”
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