Jim Ketch
The same year the Beatles washed ashore from England, UNC music professor James Ketch was a seventh grader in the Illinois town of Peoria, the trumpeter in his own jazz combo, fretting about how they would play.
Fast forward 40 years. New students fret: how well will we play in Chapel Hill?
Ketch started the Carolina Jazz Festival in 1978, a year after he came to UNC, to meet high school directors across the state and recruit top music students. Inviting world-class artists to work with the students might also help elevate the stature and visibility of the jazz program, he thought.
The 2011 festival is the 34th. It is a permanent fixture on Carolina’s cultural landscape and a milepost passed by countless young jazz artists on their journeys toward virtuosity.
Ryan Raven, a music student studying jazz trumpet under Ketch, played at the festival all four years he attended South View High School in Fayetteville. It was exciting just coming to Chapel Hill, Raven says, but thrilling to play in front of famous jazz artists who were there to listen – and tell you how you did.
There is no higher compliment, Raven says, than after playing a piece to hear Ketch say, “That is exactly what I am talking about.”
For a few days each year, the jazz festival helps even the odds in the art’s favor.
“When an artist turns a blues phrase on the trumpet into a field holler moan, it connects a student on this campus to the pain of slavery,” Ketch said. “That’s what we can do to make jazz more than a fond remembrance of things past. It means a great deal to many of us and we hope that we can spread that meaning and feeling to others.”
Other Recent Profiles
''Aha!'' moments have shaped Abigail Panter's life, thanks in large p...
VIEW PROFILE »
This past December, Tar Heels everywhere turned their eyes to the UNC...
VIEW PROFILE »
Ann Trollinger acts as a personal financial adviser to Covenant Scho...
VIEW PROFILE »
Ben Major wants to figure out what each of our 20,000 genes do, how t...
VIEW PROFILE »
The life story of Bereket Selassie, the William E. Leuchtenburg Profe...
VIEW PROFILE »
It was, perhaps, by chance that Beth Sauer joined the staff at UNC's ...
VIEW PROFILE »
Betsy Sleath, Ph.D., is a contented, albeit very busy woman. She's ta...
VIEW PROFILE »
Chris Myers found his place at Carolina by guiding others.The busines...
VIEW PROFILE »
Cierra Hinton likes getting things done.In her Carolina career, the c...
VIEW PROFILE »
As a chemical engineering student at UCLA, Darren DeWalt was interest...
VIEW PROFILE »
Darshan Mundada has long been committed to improving human rights and...
VIEW PROFILE »
Delton Atkinson is soft-spoken, but his work speaks powerfully and el...
VIEW PROFILE »
On the playground outside Cameron Elementary School in Moore County o...
VIEW PROFILE »
Are we really so undisciplined that we can't stay off of Facebook whe...
VIEW PROFILE »
On Feb. 2, 1972 Gary Bowen and his fraternity brothers crowded around...
VIEW PROFILE »
The implications of a chronic health condition have long been a part ...
VIEW PROFILE »
Giselle Corbie-Smith, M.D., wasn't drawn to medicine from the start. ...
VIEW PROFILE »
Someone has been watching what Henry McKoy is doing to encourage busi...
VIEW PROFILE »
Jackie Overton likes her job and the people she works with at the Dep...
VIEW PROFILE »
James Hill '10 and his mother Judy '78 are true believers in Carolina...
VIEW PROFILE »
When Title IX was passed in 1972, opening doors for women in unpreced...
VIEW PROFILE »
Jennifer Pan isn't your average UNC-Chapel Hill junior.She's a health...
VIEW PROFILE »
What kind of example does it set for an over-scheduled school adminis...
VIEW PROFILE »
When Joseph S. Ferrell came to Carolina as a first-year student from ...
VIEW PROFILE »
University Operator: (919) 962-2211 | © 2012 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |