Nate Lawrence, 1942-2023

The Quad Cities lost an unsung hero on August 15, 2023.

Nathaniel Lee “Nate” Lawrence was born in 1942 and passed at his home in East Moline, Illinois. Many were surprised that he was 80 years old, as he was so vivacious and engaged up to the day he died. He left behind a decades-long relationship-building legacy that measurably helped make the Quad Cities artistically rich and a great place to live. His positive energy also fueled a record of volunteerism and civic engagement. He could have lived and thrived anywhere. Yet everywhere he traveled, his pride in East Moline’s Watertown neighborhood, where prolific and accomplished jazz artists called home, inspired and informed Nate's mission and message.

Watertown was where renowned jazz pianist and Berkley and Stanford educator Bill Bell, known as “The Jazz Professor,” was born and raised. Bell graduated from United Township High School and Augustana College before venturing out west, and he and Nate collaborated on many projects. While Bix Beiderbecke and Louie Bellson were conventionally recognized as the jazz pioneers from the Quad Cities, Nate consistently reminded us that Watertown was also where Bill Bell and Pat Patrick hailed from. Patrick played multiple instruments as a sideman for John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, and Duke Ellington, and is most known for his career inside the Sun Ra Arkestra. Nate was driven to celebrate and leverage that these highly accomplished jazz artists who experienced many of their formative years in East Moline.

Nate’s deep love for jazz music was his bridge to local and worldwide friendships that helped co-found, with Shellie Moore Guy, Polyrhythms, the grassroots non-profit responsible for the Third Sunday Jazz concerts and free student workshops with internationally renowned jazz artists, the Donald Meade Jazz Griot Award, and the Bill Bell Jazz and Heritage Festival. (More information on Polyrhythms at this Reader search link.) 

Nate left us days before the ninth-annual free jazz fest he produced in Rock Island. Twelve internationally-known artists and jazz educators have been honored by the annual Donald Meade Jazz Griot Award, including Dr. Jimmy Heath, Barry Harris, and Dorthaan Kirk, the wife of the late jazz master Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

Everyone Nate met became his friend, and he had a special way of focusing on each relationship. He really enjoyed bringing people together to work on a project that elevated awareness and engagement with like-minded people who would not otherwise be connected. Nate was never one for glory, working behind the scenes to make things happen – connecting people. He never held a grudge, because he had too much positive work to do. He didn’t have time to complain and fret.

In the early 1990s, Nate chaired the Quad-City Mayors Media Roundtable to promote pluralism and context as requisites for local news media coverage. Decades prior, he was editor of his own independent newspaper The Common Bond. Nate encouraged free speech and would infrequently recount his time working with Western Illinois University professor Bill Knight in the late '70s and early '80s for the central Illinois weekly indie rag the Prairie Sun, distributed by Co-Op Records. He volunteered as a board member for River Action and the Bi-State Regional Commission. At Bi-State, he advocated for reasonable bonding requirements for small business construction contractors on publicly funded projects providing more fair competition. That was Nate: a hard worker behind the scenes with a big smile.

Through the years, we worked together promoting countless community events, concerts, artists-in-residencies, and much more. Nate is survived by his brother Warren G. of Vacaville, California; his sister Charlotte (Charlie) Harper of East Moline, and a host of nieces and nephews, great-nieces and -nephews, and cousins.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Warren G. and Syvada Lawrence, and his siblings Claudie Lawrence, Clarence Lawrence, Shirley Lawrence, Harold Lawrence, and Bernice Lawrence-Brown. Nate's mortal coil was laid to rest at the Rock Island Arsenal cemetery. His soft-touch yet no-nonsense-get-to-the-crux-of-the-matter demeanor, vast historical knowledge, and friendship will be sorely missed.