Winter Jazz Concert Scheduled for December 5

East Stroudsburg University’s Jazz Ensemble will feature compositions from different eras of “big band” music at a Winter Jazz Concert Thursday, December 5 at 7:30 p.m. in Cecilia S. Cohen Recital Hall of the university’s Fine and Performing Arts Center, Normal and Marguerite streets, East Stroudsburg.

The concert, sponsored by the department of the theatre, is open to the public at no cost.  Matt Vashlishan, Ph.D., curator of the Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection, is director of the ensemble.

“Big band” jazz orchestras developed around 1910 to provide accompaniment for dancing and were a dominant form in popular music from the 1920s to the 1950s. “The Queen Bee,” a composition written by Sammy Nestico for the Count Basie Orchestra, one of the most noted of the classic “big band” groups, will be featured on the program.

Innovative trumpeter Woody Shaw’s classic piece, “Rosewood,” the title track of his 1978 Jazz Album of the Year, also will be included on the program. The album earned two Grammy nominations, and Shaw was named Best Jazz Trumpeter of the Year by Down Beat magazine for his work on the recording.

Other works on the program include “Computer” a modern piece by Bob Mintzer, a faculty member of the University of Southern California and a contemporary composer and arranger; and the vocal classic, “When I Fall in Love,” written by Victor Young and Edward Heyman, and popularized by Doris Day’s 1952 recording.

For more information about the concert, email esuarts@esu.edu.

Search

Recent Posts