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Special to the Gazette by Branson Page, UNC Jazz Band
Jazz music is truly an art form that originated on American soil. This summer,
Carolina students represented America's original art form in Europe at three of
the most prestigious jazz festivals in the world.
The UNC Jazz Band, directed by Music Professor Jim Ketch, was invited to
perform at Jazz à Vienne in Vienne, France, the Montreux Jazz Festival
in Montreux, Switzerland, and the North Seas Jazz Festival in The Hague, the
Netherlands.
Students shared the stage with such jazz legends as McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones,
Freddy Hubbard and Pat Matheny.
Responding to a magazine notice, Ketch sent a UNC Jazz Band CD to North Seas
Festival organizers. That CD -- See the World -- so impressed them that they
invited the Carolina group to perform.
"Just a few days before classes started in January (2000) I got the letter of
invitation to play the festival," Ketch said. "I remember being all excited
thinking how fun it would be to walk into jazz band the first day and say,
`Guess what? We've been invited!'"
The jazz band released See the World -- its first CD -- in September 1999, and
the collection of standards and originals by band members was the key to being
invited to so many festivals this summer.
But Ketch's dedication made the trip financially possible.
"Certainly, in the end, the University was the real hero here," he said. "They
really want their students to go across seas, but we also had some tremendous
assistance from individual donors. So all told, we raised nearly $35,000 for
the trip."
That six-month fund-raising effort helped cut students' costs substantially,
Ketch said.
"I think there was a sense that we all worked pretty diligently," he said. "Of
course, the priority was to go over, play music and have a great time as well.
"With that said, I was actually more relaxed than I usually am. I thought,
`These guys are going to sound great!' We learned five tunes in five days, and
I knew we had some good material. From then on, it was really a pretty magical
10 days."
A couple of Carolina alumni who generously donated money to help make the trip
a reality also accompanied the band on its travels. Gordon Hamrick and Fred
Fearing, the former president of the Arts and Sciences Foundation, could be
seen and heard in the crowd at every performance, cheering for the students and
showing their Tar Heel pride.
Along with performing for international audiences, students and faculty were
exposed to some of today's most inspiring jazz artists. Hearing them was one of
the trip's greatest benefits, Ketch said.
And being heard with such distinguished company is just another sign of the
quality of Carolina's jazz program. With the release of a second UNC Jazz Band
CD this fall and the expansion of the annual Carolina Jazz Festival, anyone can
see that the jazz program is one of the most progressive on campus.
"Something else that was indicative of the growth of the jazz program at UNC
was that we saw musicians like Wynton Marsalis and McCoy Tyner, who've been on
this campus, and some of the others like Dwayne Burno -- who actually spent a
week at UNC -- and the fact that he showed up at our concert," said Ketch, who
coordinates the Carolina Jazz Festival. "And Jimmy Heath comes in and says,
`Hey, hey! When are you gonna have me back?'
"It makes you feel good, like Dwayne walking in and saying, `I heard Carolina
was in the house.' That makes you feel like your program is really going
somewhere."
With the addition of Scott Warner to the jazz faculty three years ago and the
recent addition of John Brown to teach bass, the music department's jazz
faculty is steadily growing.
Warner, who teaches piano and directs the UNC Jazz Combos, said performing in
Europe this summer should give students even more reason to improve. Two of the
combos Warner directs, Shamwaris and Point of Departure, performed at the
entrance gates to the North Seas Jazz Festival for nearly 4,000 people.
"Musically, my proudest moment was when I walked in and heard the Rotterdam Big
Band playing," Ketch said. "I thought they were playing a CD, it sounded so
good. I wondered how we could even compete with that. I must admit that the
students really bolstered me up at that moment.
"We kicked off into our first number, and Vamsi (Tadepalli, alto saxophone)
played his best solo that night. That was a huge audience, and I would say that
probably for about six numbers everyone in that room just stayed put. Nobody's
solos sounded better than ours that night. So, that was the musical
highlight."
But the trip was about more than music. Much more.
"The first night in Vienne, my wife Susan and I saw a bunch of the students
sitting at the top of the outdoor auditorium, and we went through the catacombs
and sat up there with them," Ketch said. "I think it was the transition between
Elvin Jones' band and McCoy Tyner's band, and Dave Cosper (student bass player)
leaned over and said, `Mr. and Mrs. Ketch, this is the greatest night of my
life.'
"As a teacher, I realized that whatever work I had done to get us there was
completely worth it."
Upcoming UNC jazz concerts
* UNC Jazz Combos (directed by Scott Warner), Fred and Gail Fearing Jazz for a
Friday Afternoon Series, Sept. 15 at 4 p.m. in Room 107 of Hill Hall, free.
* UNC Jazz Band (directed by Jim Ketch), Home From Europe Concert, Sept. 24 at
3 p.m. on the Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence outdoor terrace
(rain location: center's Commons Room), free.
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