40th Annual AzJazz Week – “The Essence of Jazz”

The University of Arizona Fred Fox School of Music presents its 40th Annual AzJazz Week, featuring six concerts. Daily performances will take place starting Sunday, February 25 through Friday, March 2, 2018 at 7:30 p.m. in Crowder Hall. Please see full schedule of events listed below.

The jazz studies area at the UA Fred Fox School of Music is under the direction of Dr. Angelo Versace. “AzJazz Week is a long-standing tradition at the University of Arizona, thanks to the efforts of Professor Emeritus Jeff Haskell and Professor Moisés Paiewonsky. Over the years, many internationally acclaimed artists have performed in our concert halls and provided clinics for our students. Some of those include Wynton Marsalis, Clark Terry, Marian McPartland, Jimmy Cobb, Ingrid Jensen, Alan Broadbent, Chris Potter, Terell Stafford, Bill Watrous as well as several local artists and groups. I am delighted to continue Jeff Haskell’s efforts in order to benefit the community and our students year after year.

To celebrate the 40th Annual AzJazz Week, we have an eclectic lineup of groups and artists with a notable final concert featuring students from our jazz and orchestra programs, UA distinguished alumna Katherine Byrnes, as well as Jeff Haskell himself. Please join us and become a part of this UA jazz tradition!”

Concert I:
“The Latin Tinge… from Arsenio to Porter”
Jaleo
Sunday, February 25, 7:30 p.m.
Crowder Hall, $10, 7, 5

Their multicultural musical heritage has rightly led Jaleo into the top leading performers in Phoenix, Arizona. With meritorious achievable performances, Jaleo has musically reproduced impressionistic geographical cadences in their work, offering Afro Cuban, Puerto Rican and Colombian rhythmical inspiration. Their Multicultural awareness is a musical interpretation of past and present joy.

Concert II:
The Tucson Jazz Collective directed by Moisés Paiewonsky
Monday, February 26, 7:30 p.m.
Crowder Hall, $Free

The Tucson Jazz Collective (TJC), formerly Park Avenue Jazz Orchestra, is a newly formed, Tucson-based, professional jazz ensemble. The group comprises local and transplant musicians representing the best Tucson has to offer. TJC aims to promote its agenda of world-class quality music through a series of performances and concerts in and around southern Arizona, and will mark it’s first year of existence with a recording at the Jeff Haskell Recording Studio at the University of Arizona in August of 2018.

Concert III:
“Mardi Gras Extravaganza!”
The Original Wildcat Jass Band
featuring the Lindy Hopkins Dancers
Dwayne Riley, clarinet; Rick Peron, trumpet
Rob Boone, trombone, piano; Rob Wright, banjo, vocals
Ray Templin, drums, piano, vocals; Evan Dain, bass, vocals
Tuesday, February 27, 7:30 p.m.
Crowder Hall, $10, 7, 5

Concert IV:
UA Studio Jazz Ensemble featuring Andre Hayward, trombone
directed by Angelo Versace
Wednesday, February 28, 7:30 p.m.
Crowder Hall, $10, 7, 5

Andre Hayward is an extremely gifted trombonist with the sound and clarity reminiscent of the late J.J. Johnson. In 2003 he received first place and a significant scholarship at the International Thelonious Monk Trombone Competition. He has performed/recorded with Roy Hargrove, Betty Carter, Joe Williams, Slide Hampton, John Lewis, Mingus Dynasty Big Band, Gerald Wilson, Kirk Whalum, Jimmy Heath, The Duke Ellington Orchestra and Illinois Jacquet’s Big Band.

Concert V:
“The Essence of Jazz”
The Arizona Jazz Collective featuring Brice Winston, tenor saxophone; Angelo Versace, piano Tom Wakeling, bass; Dom Moio, drums
Thursday, March 1, 7:30 p.m.
Crowder Hall, $10, 7, 5

The Arizona Jazz Collective brings together four highly acclaimed artists who have performed worldwide with a who’s who of jazz. The band’s live performances embrace jazz’ past, present, and future, with a great chemistry and an adventurous, hard-swinging style. Saxophonist Brice Winston (Terence Blanchard, Herbie Hancock, Ellis Marsalis), pianist Angelo Versace (Warren Wolf, Marcus Printup, Slide Hampton), and the swinging rhythm team of veterans Tom Wakeling (Lee Konitz, James Moody, Mel Torme), & Dom Moio (Clark Terry, Herb Ellis, Ahmad Jamal) join forces only a handful of times each year to perform as the Arizona Jazz Collective. Their time together on the bandstand is always a musical highlight of the year, both for them and for their audiences!

Concert VI:
“A Night with Nelson Riddle”
featuring Katherine Byrnes, vocalist & Jeff Haskell, piano
Arizona Symphony Orchestra & UA Studio Jazz Ensemble
conducted by Thomas Cockrell, Nelson Riddle Endowed Chair in Music
Friday, March 2, 7:30 p.m.
Crowder Hall, $10, 7, 5

The Nelson Riddle Archive at the University of Arizona holds a treasure of arrangements by one of America’s preeminent figures in popular music of the 1950s and 60s. The Arizona Symphony Orchestra and UA Studio Jazz Ensemble join forces and welcome UA alumna vocalist Katherine Byrnes for an elegant evening of arrangements originally written for Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and Linda Ronstadt. Big band and symphonic orchestra unite in the great finale, Riddle’s “Adam and Eve” ballet from the 1960 film “Can-Can.”

CONTACT: Fine Arts Box Office, (520) 621-1162 or tickets.arizona.edu
TICKETS: $10, 7, 5

Download The
Event Program