West Rome 1960s saxophonist teaches skills to rising musicians
Jackie Beard never left Berklee College of Music after completing his degree in 1980.
Long before violin prodigy Tim Reynolds became a household name to music fans across Floyd County, Rome sent another talented young black performer to the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Jackie Beard left Rome
for Berklee in 1976, graduated in 1980 and immediately took a teaching position at the college where he continues to train musicians to this day.
But Beard’s story begins as a child of the ’60s growing up in Rome. Beard recalls that his father gave him his first horn when he was just 7 years old.
Beard’s older brother helped him learn how to position his fingers on the saxophone to make his musical magic happen.
“My mother and father did let me play in the clubs when I was a kid,” Beard said.
“Me being a little boy, some of the clubs I still wasn’t able to go into. There was Miss Emma Dozier’s Fraternal Lounge,” he said. “My mama balked at me going into the Bucket of Blood to play. Just that name was nasty.”
He played in a band, The Magnificents, with his older brother.
“My mother would let him take me and play with the band until about 9:30 or 10 p.m., then my brother had to rush me home,” Beard said.
He recalls that by the time he was 15, he was playing with a group, who’s name he couldn’t recall.
Beard shared the experience of his first gig with the group, playing down at the Callier Springs Country Club.
“(The band leader) paid me and when I got home I counted the money and I couldn’t believe it. It was $50,” Beard said.
He went to his mother and said he was sure he’d been paid too much.
“I was so upset and so scared I couldn’t wait until the next morning to call and tell him ‘you gave me too much money.’ I couldn’t believe it when he said the $50 was all mine,” Beard said.
Like so many teenagers in the ’60s, Beard played with a number of bands including the integrated group, The Checkerboard Squares. He recalled a gig in Cedar Bluff, Alabama, with the band.
“The white guys stood on one side of the trailer and the colored guys — in those days we were colored we weren’t black yet — we played on the other side of the trailer, but it was one band,” Beard said.
“It was one of those awkward situations,” added Roman Paul Diprima, who was a guitarist in the band.
Diprima said Beard is still a fine player.
“He is one we flew in from Boston to play at the Trout Unlimited Chili Cook Off one year when we did a jazz theme, he’s one of the few people we ever spent money on to perform,” Diprima said. “He’s one of the finest saxophone players in American in my opinion.”
Beard said the Checkerboard Squares evolved into the Sons of Aries. He did some work with Jay Walker and The
Pedestrians, as well as The Gee Tee’s.
His West Rome classmates named Beard Most Talented senior in 1973.
After graduating high school, Beard went to Europe where he joined his brother Ralston Beard, who was serving in the U.S. Army, and played in a band called 100 Percent Pure Poison. He met a musician who played chords on the piano with his left hand while playing a trumpet in his right hand.
Beard asked the fellow where he learned to do that and the man told him about Berklee.
In the spring of 1976, Beard came home, applied to go to Berklee and was accepted. After finishing his education in 1980, Larry Monroe, chairman of the performance studies department, asked if Beard might be interested in teaching. Since he didn’t have any connections to go back on the road with his music, he started teaching in the ensemble department.
“And I never left, I’ve been here ever since,” Beard said.
Beard said he has taught virtually the entire core curriculum at Berklee over the years.
“Now I’m teaching predominantly private lessons on the saxophone and I teach improvisation,” Beard said.
He also teaches recital workshops for performance majors. He chaired the performance studies department for about five years.
Rome has always had a pretty rich music scene, according to Beard. The last time he was in Rome, he remembers eating at the Mellow Mushroom and listening to Randy Honea play the bass guitar. It brought back memories of a time long ago.
Today, Beard is the ranking professor in the woodwinds department at Berklee.
And according to Diprima, he still blows a pretty mean saxophone.