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SFA to Present Jazz Greats

Sylvia Bierschenk - January 9, 2008

NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS - The longest continually-running jazz festival in the world is coming to Nacogdoches. The Stephen F. Austin State University College of Fine Arts will present the Monterey Jazz Festival 50th Anniversary Tour at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 31, in W.M. Turner Auditorium as part of its 2007-2008 University Series.

Heralded as a meeting of three generations of jazz masters, the anniversary band showcases the leaders of the past, present and future with Terence Blanchard on trumpet, James Moody on saxophone, musical director Benny Green on piano, Derrick Hodge on bass, Kendrick Scott on drums and Nnenna Freelon as guest vocalist.

The Monterey Jazz Festival is a nonprofit organization, providing year-round jazz education programs locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. The organization also presents the annual event known as the Monterey Jazz Festival, held every September on the Monterey Fairgrounds in Monterey, Calif., where the festival was first presented in 1958.

Each member of the 50th Anniversary Band has a special relationship with the Monterey Jazz Festival and is committed to cultivating jazz audiences worldwide. Moody made his first appearance at the festival in the early 1960s with Dizzy Gillespie; Green participated in the festival's educational programs as a teenager in the 1970s; and Blanchard was MJF's artist-in-residence in 2007.

Additionally, Freelon has been performing at the festival since the mid 1990s, and Hodge has been a member of Terrance Blanchard's bands that have performed at Monterey.

The festival's general manager, Tim Jackson, said this is the first time that one of the festival's all-star groups has gone on a multiple-week tour of the United Sates. They're "an incredible band . . . mesmerizing at the 50th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival in September 2007. They embody the past, present and future of jazz history," Jackson continued.

Trumpeter Terence Blanchard, a leading musician of his generation, won the 2005 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Album and was nominated for four other Grammies and for the Grand Prix du Disque. He has written over 40 film scores, including Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever," "Malcolm X," "Inside Man" and "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts."

Saxophonist James Moody has been sharing his musical talent with audiences for over five decades. In the mid 1940s, he was a member of the bebop big band of Dizzy Gillespie, a decade later he had a huge hit with "Moody's Mood for Love," and in 1998, he received the Jazz Master Award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Pianist Benny Green was a key member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers at the age of 24 and has played with such artists as Freddie Hubbard, Ray Brown and Oscar Peterson. In 1993, Peterson chose him as the first recipient of the City of Toronto's Glenn Gould International Protétgé Prize in Music.

Bassist Derrick Hodge first came to acclaim by winning the Berklee College of Music's Outstanding Soloist Award in 1996 and 1997. He has gone on to perform and record with numerous artists including Blanchard, Mulgrew Miller, Kanye West, Clark Terry and Freddy Cole. He has also composed for artists such as Blanchard and Q-Tip.

Drummer Kendrick Scott began his relationship with MJF playing with the Berklee/Monterey Quartet and has gone on to perform with such artists as Blanchard, Kenny Garrett, Stefon Harris and Joe Lovano. He received the 1999 Clifford Brown/Stan Getz fellowships from the International Association for Jazz Education and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.

Vocalist Nnenna Freelon is a six-time Grammy Award-nominee, her latest with "Bluepirnt of a Lady: Sketches of Billie Holiday," a 2005 release on the Concord label. She is the winner of the Eubie Blake Award and was twice nominated for the Lady of Soul Train Award.

For additional information on the Monterey Jazz Festival, please visit www.montereyjazzfestival.org.

Prior to the concert the College of Fine Arts will host an informative talk at 6 p.m. in Griffith Gallery across the hall from Turner Auditorium. Audience members are also invited to a post-concert reception in the gallery to honor the event's corporate sponsor, Lehmann Eye Center.

Tickets for the concert range from $35 to $17.50, with discounts available for seniors, students and youth. For tickets or more information, please call (936) 468-6407 or (888) 240-ARTS, or purchase tickets on-line.

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