The 43rd annual Western Invitational Jazz Festival will conclude with a concert featuring renowned trumpeter Sean Jones, along with the Western Jazz Orchestra, on Saturday at 7:30 PM in the Dalton Center Recital Hall. “I can just tell you that I'm ecstatic about having Mr. Sean Jones with us. He's one of the premier trumpeters alive on the earth,” says Scott Cowan, WMU professor of jazz trumpet and festival organizer, in a conversation with Cara Lieurance.
The festival, which features 18 high school big bands and 13 high school combos, will showcase the top performers as openers for the Saturday evening concert. The festival also offers free public events throughout the day on Saturday. "You can pop by the Dalton Center Recital Hall or the lecture hall, and you can take in for no fee, all of the high school jazz ensembles that are performing," Cowan says. "And then at 4:30 pm, Mr. Jones is going to give a festival masterclass for all of the kids."
Jones joins the discussion by Zoom as he commutes to work at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, MD. He talks about his time with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the San Francisco Jazz Collective. "I was able to see how this music could work in an institution like that," Jones said of his time at Lincoln Center. "SF Jazz Collective was a little bit different. We would literally try to write compositions that were beyond our ability to play them."
For tickets and more information, visit the Irving S. Gilmore School of Music website.
