KJEM

A Look Back At The 50th Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival

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Photo Credit: The University of Idaho Photo Services
Preston Snyder

The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival is held at the University of Idaho and is a festival inviting student musicians and school jazz bands from around the Pacific Northwest to compete for awards, participate in workshops and clinics put on by professional jazz musicians and experience concerts featuring famous musicians and bands. Started in 1967, this year marked the 50th anniversary of the festival. The University of Idaho made a promotional video commemorating the 50th anniversary:

The Saturday night concert started with the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival Big Band, loud and proud, led by Vern Sielert. Featuring a variety of guests, including Jason Marsalis on Vibraphone, Claudio Roditi on trumpet, and Julia Keefe singing, the band played a variety of songs including a song called 50 and Counting written by Vern and closed with a loud and proud arrangement of Lionel Hampton’s Flying Home featuring Jason Marsalis, in the style of Hampton, and a dancing trumpet section.

The set then transitioned to the best student soloists from the day and each group played their best songs from their set. Then they all came together for a final group performance and one lucky soloist, Max Zhang from Semiahmoo Secondary School in Surrey, British Columbia, was named Outstanding Instrumental Soloist for bass and received a University of Idaho scholarship from Avista Utilities.

After a brief intermission, the stage was reset and, in an outfit far more colorful than the other two performances before her, Esperanza Spaulding took to the stage, had a casual conversation with the audience as she tuned her bass, and then began to play and sing. She was joined by Justin Tyson on drums and Matthew Stevens on guitar. She played a variety of different styles and genres from an Argentinian standard to a mash-up of Humpty Dumpty by Chick Corea and All The Kings Horses by Aretha Franklin because “Those songs just sound like they should go together.” Then Justin left the stage leaving Esperanza and Matthew to play a slow, free version of Have I Stayed Too Long At The Fair. Justin came back and the trio played a loud and engaging Endangered Species. Finally, after asking for some participation, Esperanza Spaulding led a rousing finale of Nina Simone’s Forbidden Fruit. The trio took their bows, the lights came up and as the they walked backstage that was the conclusion of the 50th Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival.

For more information about The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival and The University of Idaho visit:

http://www.uidaho.edu/class/jazzfest

Big Band II

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The WSU School of Music Big Band II will be performing at Kimbrough Concert Hall. The concert is free and open to the public.

What Is Jazz Night In America?

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Along with NPR Music’s partners at WBGO and Jazz At Lincoln Center, we’re proud to announce a new public media initiative: Jazz Night In America. You can check it out on your local public radio station, as well as online at npr.org/jazznight.

Jazz Night In America is many things. It’s a weekly radio show from three groups that have all made nationally syndicated jazz radio for many years, with an internationally renowned musician as our guide. It’s a weekly concert video webcast from venues across the country. It’s a hub for video features, multi-platform journalism and on-demand access. All together, it’s a portrait of jazz music today, as seen through many of its exceptional live performances and performers.

Here’s how to experience it.

On The Radio: Every week, starting today, we’re offering a one-hour program centered on great concerts and the stories behind them. Christian McBride, whom you may know as a phenomenal bass player and bandleader, hosts the show. Currently, more than 100 public radio stations have signed on to broadcast Jazz Night In America, so check your local listings for when it’ll be on.

On Demand: On our new online hub, we’ll feature all sorts of content on demand. Our new Jazz Videos channel will gather highlights from our webcasts, documentary features and more series from NPR Music, such as Tiny Desk Concerts and Field Recordings. We’ll also spotlight audio and written journalism from NPR’s news shows or A Blog Supreme. And we’ll archive the radio shows and audio from the concert webcasts if you want to peruse them on your own time. Again, that’s all at npr.org/jazznight.

We’ve joined together as partners because we want to reach as many people in and around the jazz community as we can. We know, from decades of experience, that there’s immense power in music and conversation on air — that it reaches people like nothing else can. We know, from being fans, that this music demands to be seen live, so we’ve captured visually stunning concert recordings to simulate the experience as beautifully as possible. We know that today, people expect to consume media on their own time and schedules, so we wanted to enable you to do that. We hope to reach the people who live for this music, and we hope to make it easy for the curious to get hooked.

We’ve planned what we think is a great lineup — check out the webcast schedule on the homepage — and we’re certainly still planning. We’re confident that this music speaks strongly: of lived experience, of great labor and intelligence, of life-affirming artistic creativity. With Jazz Night In America, we intend to convey that in all the ways we can.

Copyright 2014 WBGO and Jazz At Lincoln Center. To see more, visit .

WSU’s Murrow College launches jazz radio station 89.9 KJEM

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PULLMAN, Wash. – With the flip of a switch Friday, KJEM 89.9 FM, the newest radio station in the Palouse, began filling the airways with the sounds of jazz in honor of WSU alumnus and broadcast pioneer J. Elroy McCaw.

At the controls, his son Bruce R. McCaw officially signed on the station 76 years to the day after his father launched his first radio station, KELA in Centralia, Wash.

J. Elroy McCaw, WSU alum and Northwest radio pione

KJEM, whose call letters are derived from J. Elroy McCaw’s initials, is the newest of the 19 stations in the Northwest Public Radio (NWPR) group, the largest National Public Radio network in the Pacific Northwest. Unlike other NWPR stations, KJEM will be run by students but under the guidance of NWPR’s professional management team. Continue reading →