News Arts Festival features artists from jazz greats to students
| Festival features artists from jazz greats to students |
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| Wednesday, February 13, 2008 | |
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Note: News release about the festival Festival schedule Artists and ensembles scheduled to perform in the 2008 Carolina Jazz Festival, Feb. 27 to March 1 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, are: Headliners: SFJAZZ Collective: “…this all-star octet features an exceptionally gifted and varied cast of musicians,” the San Francisco Chronicle wrote of this band, formed in 2004 by SFJAZZ, the West Coast’s largest nonprofit jazz institution and the presenter of the annual San Francisco Jazz Festival. Upon the group’s debut, The New York Times reported, “A serious jazz band rises in San Francisco.” The collective performs compositions by a different modern jazz master every year. Dedicated to interpreting the works of notable names in jazz, the group has featured selections by the late saxophonist and composer John Coltrane, pianist and composer Herbie Hancock (winner, 2008 Grammy, Album of the Year for “River: The Joni Letters”) and the late pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. The group also plays new pieces commissioned by SFJAZZ and written by its members. The musicians include Grammy winner Joe Lovano, tenor saxophone; and Grammy-nominated Dave Douglas, trumpet, and Stefon Harris, vibraphone. For more information, visit http://www.sfjazz.org/SFJAZZCollective/2008/index.asp . North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra: Made up of 18 professional musicians and music educators from colleges, universities and bands across the state, the orchestra celebrates the ongoing legacy of big-band music. It performs classics by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and others. The orchestra travels often to share the genre in communities and schools across North Carolina. Its three compact discs are “Holiday Blizzard,” 1997; “Benny Goodman: The Swing Collection,” 1998; and “Duke Ellington: A Centennial Collection,” 1999, released during a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the band leader’s birth. The Duke Ellington Society chose the latter as one of the year’s best releases. Ticket sales, donors and the North Carolina Jazz Foundation support the orchestra. Its music director is UNC music professor James Ketch, director of jazz studies, trumpet player and longtime organizer of the Carolina Jazz Festival. For more information, visit http://www.ncjro.org/ . Artists in Residence: Greg Gisbert, a trumpeter with three compact discs on the Criss Cross label, also is a member of the Denver jazz sextet Convergence (http://www.jazzconvergence.com/ ). Gisbert was playing drums in his father’s band at age 10. He took up trumpet while still in grade school and studied the instrument at clinics given by Jamey Aebersold, a jazz faculty member at the University of Louisville, and Clark Terry, a National Endowment for the Arts trumpeter, scat singer and musician for 10 years on “The Tonight Show.” Gisbert attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston and played in the 1980s and 1990s with artists including Terry, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Tony Bennett, Gary Burton and John-Fedchock and the late Woody Herman and Buddy Rich. He also played with the late vocalists Sammy Davis Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Torme, Sarah Vaughan and others. Victor L. Goines, who plays clarinet and saxophone, has been a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in New York City and the Wynton Marsalis Septet since 1993. He has toured worldwide and performed on more than 20 albums. He leads his own ensembles and has seven recordings on Criss Cross Records. Goines has written more than 50 original works. Now director of jazz studies and a music professor at Northwestern University in Chicago, Goines previously directed the jazz program at the Juilliard School. For more information, visit http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/11/goines.html or http://www.jalc.org/concerts/artist2.asp?PersonID=136 . Drummer Herlin Riley, a featured musician of Jazz at Lincoln Center, was in Ahmad Jamal’s group from 1984 to 1987 and has recorded with Marcus Roberts, Dr. John, Harry Connick Jr., George Benson, Benny Wallace and others. Riley performed with Wynton Marsalis’ touring and recording group from 1988 to 1994. He also performed on the first Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra United States tour in 1992. For more information, visit http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=23570 . Student ensembles: UNC Jazz Band: The flagship of the UNC music department’s jazz studies program, the 20-member band performs big-band classics. Its repertoire ranges from music of the 1920s to contemporary selections. The band allows students to develop musicianship, style and improvisational tools that can enable them to become professional artists, says band director James Ketch, a UNC music professor, director of jazz studies, trumpet player and longtime organizer of the Carolina Jazz Festival. The band has recorded three compact discs and performed by invitation at three of Europe’s most prestigious summer jazz festivals: Jazz aVienne in France; the Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland; and the North Seas Festival in The Netherlands. UNC Jazz Combos: The four UNC Jazz Combos range in size from a quintet to an octet and focus on small group improvisation. The student musicians write and develop many of their own arrangements. The combos perform special programs that might be called the chamber music of jazz. UNC music faculty members Ketch, Stephen Anderson and Ed Paolantonio direct the combos. N.C. Regional Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Festival participants: High school bands and combos will come to UNC for the Feb.28 festival. Essentially Ellington is an educational arm of Jazz at Lincoln Center, a New York nonprofit organization dedicated to jazz. The Ellington program disseminates the music of Duke Ellington in original arrangements to high school musicians across the country for study and performance. For more information, call (919) 962-7560, or (919) 962-1039 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Music department contact: James Ketch, (919) 962-7560, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Carolina Performing Arts contact: Harry Kaplowitz, (919) 843-3119, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |