By Steve Williams
Salt Lake City, UT – I'm attending the 34th Annual International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) conference in NYC in early January.
This is the largest assembly of Jazz industry people in the world. Players, educators, Radio and TV people along with promoters and record company folks.
The big band of high school students from all over Utah, who are part of the Crescent High School Super Band out of American Fork's Music School, under the direction of Caleb Chapman, have been invited to play for the opening of the conference in Manhattan. They will play with trumpeter, band leader Doc Severinsen, who used to front The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson for many years and is a terrific player.
The director, Chapman was awarded KUER's Voice Of Jazz Award this past summer
at the Park City Jazz Festival, by me.
The students, ages sixteen to eighteen, are very excited to be the opening act with such a famous musician playing out in front of them, as leader and soloist. They are terrific young players, who've knocked out big time jazz players all over the world.
They've asked me to be there as a cheerleader for them and a couple of weeks ago I had Caleb and a couple of the young students on the air with me to talk about their fund raising concert this past November the 29th. The benefit concert was for raising funds to send the band to NYC for this event.
Go Utah Jazz Musicians!