Paying tribute to a legendary composer and bassist, the University of Michigan Jazz Festival also will honor a veteran, Detroit-based member of Congress who has long championed this American art form.
Coinciding with Black History Month, the event will swing into action tomorrow, Saturday, February 13, which Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has declared "Charles Mingus Day." In addition to the clinics, lectures, and other activities that will happen at U-M's School of Music, Theatre and Dance, there will be several musical performances in Ann Arbor.
At 1 p.m., the School's Robert Hurst will perform Charles Mingus: The Man and His Music, along with fellow bassist Christian McBride, the latter of whom will be involved in multiple festival events. Linda Yohn of WEMU-FM will act as moderator for the concert at Stamps Auditorium, which also will feature a "Big Ten Jam Session" comprised of students from U-M and other schools.
The Festival Feature Concert takes place at 8 p.m. at the Power Center for the Performing Arts, during which Festival Director Dennis Wilson will lead the U-M Jazz Ensemble and the Detroit Jazz Festival Orchestra. Concluding the main event, McBride will take the stage once more with his eponymous Christian McBride Band, who will mesh their instruments with the voices of the Second Ebenezer Majestic Voices Gospel Choir in the premiere of The Movement, Revisited, a new McBride work, originally in four movements, that celebrates the lives of civil rights pioneers Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In recognition of Barack Obama's election as president, the bassist has added a fifth movement, and the live performance at the Power Center is slated to be recorded for a future CD release. The following day, Sunday, February 14, at 7:30 p.m., McBride will again perform the opus, this time inside Detroit's historic Second Ebenezer Church, an event scheduled to be recorded for a forthcoming DVD release.
Another festival highlight will be the honor bestowed upon Congressman John Conyers, Jr., now serving his 22nd term in the U.S. House of Representatives. Conyers, vital to the passage of the Jazz Preservation Act, will be given the inaugural "John Conyers, Jr. Jazz Advocacy Award."
U-M's School of Music, Theatre and Dance, through the Department of Jazz and Improvisation, is presenting this noncompetitive event, designed to afford high school and college students the opportunity to immerse themselves in the music, and to interact with its performers, in order to gain a deeper appreciation of jazz and its cultural impact.
Festival tickets are priced at $15, $20, and $25, and can be purchased at the Michigan Union Ticket Office, by calling the ticket office at 734-763-8587, or through Ticketmaster.
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