SOSU Jazz Ensemble to Present Spring Concert
Press Release Date: 01-31-2007
Southeastern Oklahoma State University’s Jazz Ensemble will present its spring concert at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 6, in Montgomery Auditorium on the SOSU campus.
The concert is preparation for the annual tour. There is no admission charge and the public is invited.
Dr. Michael Miles is the director of the Jazz Ensemble. Miles said, “This could well be the finest group of musicians we’ve ever assembled in one jazz band. There is a great deal of talent and they have worked harder than any group I’ve directed in my 16 years at Southeastern.”
The concert will also feature freshman singing sensation Vance Davis.
“Vance is an extremely talented young man who can croon with the best,” Miles said. Davis will be featured on It Had To Be You, and an arrangement of Everyday I Have the Blues made famous by the Count Basie Orchestra and Diane Schuur.
The concert also features a variety of music from every jazz genre and era. The group always plays as varied a program as possible so everyone in the audience can enjoy the show.
This year’s program includes “Basie Style” swing tune Blues in Hoss Flat and a Gordon Goodwin original titled “Sing, Sang, Sung,” which is based on Benny Goodman’s famous tune Sing, Sing, Sing. The band will also perform a beautiful jazz arrangement of America, Maynard Ferguson’s Cruisin’ for a Bluisin’, a Tom Kubis arrangement of St. Thomas and a Victor Lopez original Latin tune titled Fiesta Bahia.
The featured numbers will pay tribute to Stan Kenton and his introduction of Latin music into the “big band” genre. The band will perform a William Russo piece written for the Kenton orchestra titled 23 degrees north/82 degrees west, which are the latitude and longitude coordinates for Cuba.
No tribute to Kenton would be complete without the original arrangement of Malaguena, which adds four mellophones to the jazz band.
The concert is free and the public in invited to come on out and join the SOSU Jazz Ensemble for a great evening of America’s music—jazz.