FRIDAY, JULY 2:
4:30 pm United Jazz Ensemble
Directed by Rich Medd and Mike Moehlmann, this 18-piece band is composed of students from Iowa City High School and West High School in Iowa City. Every May, this ensemble comes together to prepare for the Jazz Festival. For 17 years, this band has immersed students in jazz over the summer and built a strong bond between the programs at the two schools. Don’t underestimate the ability of these young people to swing like crazy!
6:00 pm U.S. Army Blues Website
The U.S. Army Blues celebrated its 35th Anniversary in 2007. After beginning informally in 1970, The Army Blues became an official part of the United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own” in 1972. Over the years it has evolved into the premier jazz ensemble of the U.S. Army. Comprised of alumni of prestigious music schools and veterans of the professional music scene, it is an ensemble of the finest jazz musicians in the nation.
In keeping with the tradition of America’s only original art form, jazz, the Army Blues strives to preserve the music of such big band legends as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, and Stan Kenton. The 18-piece ensemble has performed at world-renowned venues including the Monterey Jazz Festival in California, the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, New York City’s historic Birdland, and Washington, DC’s legendary Blues Alley. The Army Blues has also performed with jazz greats, including Arturo Sandoval, Stanley Turrentine, Louie Bellson, James Moody, Kevin Mahogany, Terrell Stafford, Dave Brubeck, and Slide Hampton. Performances at the White House and the State Department and for the public around the National Capital Region are common. The group’s members are very active in the nation’s school systems. In addition to performing, the mission of the ensemble includes educational outreach and recruitment and teaching master classes and one-on-one instruction.
The band is directed by Chief Warrant Officer Five Charles H. Vollherbst, a native of Maplewood, New Jersey, and has degrees from Regents College and Virginia Commonwealth University. Vollherbst has appeared as a guest conductor with symphonies, college ensembles, community bands, and high school honors bands. He was awarded the honorary Order of St. Martin award and is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honor Society.
8:00 pm Bob Washut Dream Band
The "Bob Washut Dream Band" has been assembled specifically for the 2010 Iowa City Jazz Festival and is comprised of some of the finest jazz musicians from Iowa and Iowa schools. Many of the band members are Washut's colleagues and former students from the University of Northern Iowa, where he has taught for the past thirty years. The band's repertoire is culled primarily from Washut's compositions and arrangements written over his career.
Washut is Professor of Music at the University of Northern Iowa, where he served as Director of Jazz Studies from 1980 - 2002. An accomplished jazz composer and arranger, Washut has received numerous commissions from
collegiate jazz ensembles, professional jazz artists, and symphony orchestras. During his 22 years as director of the award-winning UNI Jazz Band One, he has recorded 11 CDs (two of which earned 5-star ratings from Downbeat magazine), toured Europe three times, consistently received "Outstanding Band" recognition at collegiate jazz festivals throughout the Midwest, and was awarded three "Outstanding Performance" citations in Downbeat's Annual Student Music Awards. Much in demand as a clinician and adjudicator, Washut is an active jazz pianist, who founded the Latin jazz band, Orquesta Alto Maiz. He was inducted into the Iowa IAJE Hall of Fame in 2003 and was selected as Outstanding Teacher at UNI in 1996.
Saturday, July 3:
2:00 pm Equilateral Website
Equilateral is the brainchild of frontmen trumpeter, Brent Sandy and saxophonist, Chris Merz with their virtuosic rhythm section, Greg Mazunik (electric bass) and Eric Thompson (drums). The repertoire is entirely original, but reflects the influences of rock, folk, pop, mainstream jazz, and ECM artists such as Jan Garbarek and Keith Jarrett. Equal parts composition and improvisation, this group strikes a balance between form and freedom.
Merz and Sandy have worked together extensively since 2000, when Merz returned to Iowa to take a teaching position at the University of Northern Iowa. The current lineup came together in the fall of 2008, after Sandy’s return from a stint in Corfu, Greece on a Fullbright Fellowship. Mazunik has freelanced around the Iowa City area for the past 10 years. Thompson recently returned from New York City, where he lived and worked following graduation from the New England Conservatory.
The band has recorded two compact discs: “Also Not Pictured…” (2002) and “And Another Thing,” (2009) for X-tet Records. Bassist/composer Steve Swallow says of “Also not pictured…” They’re all thoughtful, articulate players (and) …the ingenious, intriguing writing insists that each of these excellent musicians search for fresh approaches to playing in the moment. This challenge is answered boldly.”
Individually, the members of Equilateral have won much praise, including several Downbeat awards, Outstanding Soloist at MusicFest USA, outstanding soloist at the Notre Dame Jazz Festival, Punt Pass & Kick (third place), Best Costume, Beer Tasting (champion), Best Camper, and the Junior Miss avant-garde jazz soloist. They have played with Billy Taylor, Dave Brubeck, Steve Swallow, Carla Bley, Donnie McCaslin, Guaranteed Swahili, Steve McCraven and the New England Jazz Ensemble, and have performed at festivals such as the Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland), Ozone Festival (Neuchatel, Switzerland), Guiness Jazz Festival (Johannesburg, South Africa) and Bright Moments Festival (Amherst, MA).
4:00 pm Public Property Website
Need a groove? Mix gospel, reggae and ska. Add a pinch of sugar. Add a cup of ukulele. Stir. Add a teaspoon of hip-hop for good measure. When the pot has come to a nice glow, pepper in some funk. Simmer down. In a large bowl, serve to friends. This is Public Property with Dave Bess ukulele/guitar/lead vocals, Ben Franklin drums, Margaret Larson vocals, Meghan McDonough vocals, Jeremiah Murphy bass, Andy Parrott lead guitar, and Matt Wright keyboards.
6:00 pm Gabriel Espinosa’s “From Yucatan to Rio” Website
Here is New York Jazz with a Latin vibe! Listen to the harmonies and insinuating rhythms of Brazil created by the “From Yucatan to Rio Band,” lead by Mexico-born bassist-composer-arranger Gabriel Espinosa. This international, all-star cast of world class players and improvisers, includes, among others, Helio Alves on piano, Adriano Santos on drums, Paul Meyer on guitar and Alison Wedding on vocals.
Mr. Epinosa, a native of Merida, the capital of the Mexican state of Yucatan, grew up absorbing the sounds of the bossa nova movement that swept the United States and Mexico in the early 1960s. “I remember being 14 years old, listening to those great Brazilian players who would come through Merida on their tours. And I was like, Wow! That music is so interesting, so nice. I really fell in love with it as a teenager and since then I’ve really been close to that kind of music.” A graduate of Central College in Pella, Iowa, Espinosa attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he received a diploma in arranging. He later received his master’s degree in jazz studies in 1995 at the University of North Texas, and the following year came full circle back to Central College, where he has been director of Jazz Studies for the past 13 years. Throughout his career as an educator and player (he’s recorded three CDs since 2000 with the Latin band Ashanti), Espinosa has put a premium on being a composer-arranger rather than showcasing his own bass chops. The music you will hear “From Yucatan to Rio” is a beautiful blend of the rhythmic and lyrical horns and, the affecting singer, Wedding. Gabriel’s latest CD is (not surprisingly) “From Yucatan to Rio,” from Zoho Music (2008).
8:00 pm Roswell Rudd’s Trombone Tribe Website
Village Voice jazz critic, Francis Davis, has referred to Roswell Rudd as “returning to braying trombone excellence.” Rudd’s “Tribe” was voted one of the top groups in the 2009 Downbeat Jazz Critics poll and Rudd was in second place for trombone in this year’s Downbeat Critics Poll. The Tribe Band will take you through the history of jazz from New Orleans marching band music through Swing, Bop and Free Form. The band features some of the finest musicians active today. Besides Roswell, Deborah Weisz and Steve Swell also on trombones, Bob Stewart, tuba, Ken Filiano, bass, and Barry Altschul is on drums. Trombone Tribe shows its eclectic influences from down home to Kurt Weill to Eastern European gypsy brass music. Most important, this band can swing!!!
Rudd began his career as a trombonist in a traditional jazz band called Eli's Chosen Six at Yale University. He went on to become a leading trombonist in the free jazz scene of the 1960s and 1970s recording with, among others, Don Cherry and Carla Bley. In recent years, he has recorded with vocalist Sheila Jordan, soprano saxophonist Steve Lacey, tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp and Sex Mob. Rudd also has explored different genres of music from around the world. He has recorded with Malian musicians on his 2001 CD MALIcool, a cross-cultural collaboration with kora player Toumani Diabaté and other Malian musicians, which represented the first time the trombone had been featured in a recording of Malian traditional music. More recently, he recorded with the Mongolian Buryat Band, a traditional music group of musicians from Mongolia and Buryatia, entitled Blue Mongol, and with Yomo Toro, one of Puerto Rico's most famous cuatro players, on El Espiritu Jibaro (both on Sunnyside Records).
Sunday, July 4:
2:00 p.m. Koplant No Website
Koplant No is a forward-thinking ensemble that incorporates elements of jazz, electronic music, and progressive rock. Their influences include Radiohead, Telefon Tel Aviv, Beck, J Dilla, Garbage Factory and Happy Apple.
Featuring Brian Lewis Smith on trumpet and laptop, Drew Morton on bass, Rob Baner on drums and samples, and Joel Vanderheyden on saxophone, the band has been developing its unique sound throughout the Midwest since 2008. Joel Vanderheyden's debut album on the Mize record label, Complete Life, features Koplant No and was chosen as CD of the Month for August 2009 on Jazz 88.3 KCCK. Chris Cooke of KIOS 91.5FM in Omaha says the album is "highly recommended, one of the best jazz rock records to be released in years!" Look for the highly anticipated Koplant No debut album in the Summer of 2010.
4:00 pm Lake Street Dive Website
The four members of Lake Street Dive met while studying jazz together at The New England Conservatory. Trumpeter Mike Olson assembled a cast of his favorite musicians, including Rachael Price, a finalist in the Thelonius Monk International Jazz Competition for vocals, versatile and outrageous drummer Mike Calabrese, and Iowa City native Bridget Kearney on bass. For the past four years, audiences in Boston and the surrounding area have continually relied on Lake Street Dive to deliver performances replete with strong pop sensibilities, sassy lyrics, exuberant live interaction and irreverence for convention. Since the release of their sophomore album "Promises, Promises" their presence has been received with fanfare across the United States and their songs have twice been recognized in the Best Jazz Song category of The John Lennon Songwriting Contest.
Lake Street Dive has recorded 2 CD’s “Promises, Promises,” and “In This Episode,” and performed in venues in NYC, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Des Moines, and St. Paul.
6:00 pm Paul Smoker Notet
Trumpeter Paul Smoker leads the Notet, a quartet with Steve Salerno on guitar, Ed Schuller on bass and Phil Haynes on drums. The leader has been described in Downbeat Magazine as presenting “… a history of the music in his horn. Imagine an amalgam of Armstrong's bravura, Dizzy's go-for-broke gumption, Cootie's plunger-talk, Cherry's/Bowie's raggedy-ass attack, and the exhibitionism of a high-note specialist. He seems to come from everyplace at the same time. " Salerno adds his exotic electric guitar, Haynes is a monster on the drums, and bassist Schuller provides a strong beat, elegant arco and infectious vamps.
Smoker studied and performed both jazz and classical music while growing up in Davenport, Iowa, and graduated with a doctorate in music from the University of Iowa in 1974. As a trumpeter, his influences include avant garde classical sources as well as the jazz trumpet tradition and also the saxophonists John Coltrane and Anthony Braxton. He taught jazz studies and contemporary music at Coe College from 1976 to 1990 and has also taught at the universities of Iowa, Northern Iowa, and Wisconsin-Oshkosh. In 1990 he moved to upstate New York and now concentrates on composing and performing, while accepting a few private students.
Smoker has performed and recorded with saxophonist/composer Anthony Braxton, Dodo Marmarosa, Art Pepper, Frank Rosolino, David Liebman, George Lewis, Peter Brötzman Lee Konitz, David Sanborn, Gerry Hemingway, Marilyn Crispell, and Evan Parker. He was first elected to the annual Downbeat Critics' Poll in 1986, and has been the subject of feature articles in Downbeat, Jazziz, Coda, Cadence, and other news media.
The Notet has performed at a variety of venues including the Rochester International Jazz Festival. Their most recent recording is "The Paul Smoker Notet Live at the Bop Shop, " (on Anjus Music). Coda Magazine wrote: “Paul has taken all of the world around him and put it into his trumpet. The result is some of the most expressive, personal, and original music heard anywhere."
8:00 pm Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio Website
Hammond B-3 organist, Dr. Lonnie Smith, started with guitarist, George Benson in 1967, followed by recording with alto saxophonist, David Fathead Newman, alto sax legend Lou Donaldson and his own solo Blue Note LPs. The Doctor is right up there with Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, and Charles Earland as one of THE all-time best Hammond organ players in jazz! Dr. Smith wears his trademark turban when he plays. Jazz Times magazine recently described Lonnie as “a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a turban!”
The Doctor was born in Buffalo, where he and his mother sang around the house and aunts and uncles and cousins played gospel music. At 16, he joined a singing group named the Supremes that played sockhops in the area, but the desire to play an instrument overwhelmed him. One day Lonnie was sitting around a music store, when the merchant showed him a Hammond B3 in the back. The merchant told him, “If you can get this out of here, it's yours.” “I didn't know how to play it, but this man took a chance on me. And I had this brand new Hammond, which cost thousands of dollars then. And I was doing all of this by ear, 'cause I didn't read. I just picked up the instrument naturally."
Dr. Smith insists that the organ is a tough instrument to play, but a listener wouldn't know it based on the complete effortlessness with which he plays. "Right from the beginning I was able to play and I didn't even know how. I learned how to work the stops and that was it; everything else came naturally.
Lonnie’s trio features guitarist and composer Jonathan Kreisberg, who at age 16, started at the New World School of the Arts, following by winning a scholarship to the University of Miami, where he held the guitar chair in the acclaimed Concert Jazz Band, touring Brazil. Upon graduation, Jonathan began playing straight ahead jazz gigs as well as a myriad of other projects. In 1997 he returned to his birthplace in NYC to focus on cutting edge acoustic jazz. In addition to his performing with Lonnie, Jonathan has worked with Lee Konitz, Greg Tardy, Lenny White, Jane Monheit, Bill Stewart and Larry Grenadier. Kreisberg is known for his extraordinarily clean articulation, remarkable sax-like fluency, harmonic daring and rhythmically assured burn.
Drummer, Jamire Williams completes the Trio. Williams is a fiery drummer, who says, “I am not a jazz drummer! I'm a drummer that plays jazz really really really really good!" He also has performed with the Robert Glasper Trio and Kenny Garrett’s quartet, among other contemporary groups.
On Friday & Saturday, after the final mainstage performance, a Jam session band will play at the Mill Restaurant. On Sunday night, July 4th after the final set, fireworks will begin at 9:45 pm in Hubbard Park.