A Constant Search
Jim Speirs has always been on something of a quest. A drive to improve access to the arts across the state of South Dakota through his arts advocacy work. And a desire to constantly up his game when it comes to his musicianship. It’s perhaps this very spirit that draws him again and again to jazz performance.
“I think there’s something about the music — there’s this constant search for how to say things differently,” said Speirs, a local career trumpeter. “You never quite get it perfect — even on the nights you feel like you’re in the zone. You still walk away wanting to do something differently. This searching, this goal of trying to say things better, more efficiently, more succinctly — just like anybody who works hard on being a public speaker or presenter. You’re always refining how you share your thoughts, emotions and feelings and how you tell your story. In improvised music, that’s a constant.”
This constant search brought Speirs from his early days growing up in Spearfish and Rapid City to his time with the South Dakota State University (SDSU) program.
“I grew up in a musical family,” Speirs said. “My mom taught elementary music for almost 40 years. So I was around music my entire life. I knew I always wanted to play the trumpet — for whatever reason, I can remember at eight or nine years old, really digging the sound of the trumpet. That was the only thing I ever even considered playing from day one.”
Moving to Rapid City just before middle school, Speirs benefited from the strength of the Rapid City Stevens music program, something he cherishes to this day as the executive director of arts advocacy organization Arts South Dakota.
“We’re so fortunate in so many of our communities in South Dakota that we have a really good band education program,” he said. “South Dakota, for generations, has had a really robust instrumental music education and band program.”
Studying under John Colson and Jim McKinney at SDSU, Speirs began his journey with jazz in earnest, including being a part of a student-led jazz combo that began to gig off-campus.
“I’d always loved it — my friends in middle school would tease me, because I’d be listening to Doc Severinsen and the Tonight Show band while they’re listening to Journey,” he said. “I just loved big band music, but it wasn’t really until I went to SDSU that I started to really get into it. I was given some skills and provided tools to learn how to play the music.
“My senior year (at SDSU), one of the jazz faculty groups received a call for a show. They couldn’t do it, but hey knew about the student combo and trusted us enough to kick us that gig. We went and played at the Starlight Hotel for a Christmas party — we played out of a fake book for an hour and had free dinner. We each made about $50. I remember thinking, ‘this is pretty cool.’ I thought, ‘this is the journey.’”
That emphasis of jazz in Speirs’ life has been a constant ever since, with the hallmarks of the genre being what keeps him coming back to it time and again.
“It’s kind of the heart,” Speirs said of the practice of musical improvisation. “It’s not just simply ‘play what you feel’ — it’s a lifelong study of technique and connecting emotions and ideas and experiences through this spontaneous composition that happens onstage. You listen to jazz, you hear the style, and it’s a mystery — you learn from copying and repetition, but you need to understand theory and chord structure and song forms.
“I think you always go back because there are infinite variables. Every night’s a magical experience. You wonder how we did that, how we all synced up. It’s this notion of discovery for what will happen next — it’s so rewarding.”
Beyond his active performing career, Speirs learned from a young age the importance of arts nonprofits in keeping South Dakota’s performing artists thriving — no matter the size of the community. It all started with an internship.
“It was the first summer the Washington Pavilion was open — summer of 1999,” he said of his internship opportunity right out of college. “I was there on the steps on day one in June the first time the public was allowed in the building. That was pretty exciting to be a part of it. Whether I realized it or not, that was kind of my first step into working within the arts nonprofit world.”
It was his performing track that exposed the young musician to the arts diversity across the state — traveling around South Dakota to all nine Native nations as a musician, towns big and small, he quickly learned how vibrant and special each arts community is.
“No matter where you are in the state — you could be in Eagle Butte or Oelrichs, S.D. — you start to make connections with other people who are committed to having an artistic community, a creative experience.”
Seeing small-town arts councils working hard as nonprofit, volunteer organizations to keep arts thriving in every pocket of the state inspired Speirs on his next journey as an arts advocate.
“There are dedicated groups of folks that are committed to creating that kind of experience,” he said. “I was exposed to how creative and expansive the arts community is in South Dakota — not just in Sioux Falls and Rapid City.”
An opportunity to make it part of his career arose in his collaborations with the South Dakota Arts Council board members, one of whom would become one of the founding board members of what is now Arts South Dakota.
“He told me about the organization’s mission of being advocates, a nexus, a connector, a lead voice to help coalesce the arts across the state,” Speirs said. “We’re doing a lot of work to serve the arts community through professional development, networking, marketing and communications. Truly at our core of arts advocacy, it’s being in Pierre, being in Washington, D.C., making sure our policymakers are well aware of the role the arts play in our communities. It’s so important that they know that.”
So while Speirs continues his penchant for performing and his aspirations for arts advocacy statewide, one thing will remain constant — that search for beauty in performing arts will be an ever-present factor.