Lawrence Jazz Weekend brings professional jazz artists to the Lawrence campus for a 100% non-competitive jazz education festival. Instrumental and vocal jazz educators continue to appreciate the low-pressure clinic environment, the inspirational boost at the start of the school year, the extended ensemble workshop clinics with renowned clinicians, the special focus upon improvisation, the absence of ratings and trophies, and a "Who's Who" list of professional jazz artists.
The Artists
Jazz Celebration Weekend
Friday | November 8, 2013 | 7:30 p.m.
With five critically acclaimed CDs on the Palmetto Records Label and a 2009 Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Vocal, Kate McGarry has become recognized as a jazz artist who brings authenticity and vitality to a wide range of material.
The Wall Street Journal calls her music “austere and elegant;" The New York Times pronounced her “astute and sensitive.” She currently performs in many of jazz’s most venerated clubs and festivals throughout the United States and abroad, and as an educator has served on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. DownBeat magazine has cited McGarry as “Rising Star” vocalist for the past four years.
Jazz Celebration Weekend
Saturday | November 9, 2013 | 7:30 p.m.
Since their formation in 1977, The Yellowjackets’ stylistic hybridity has solidified the group’s status as one of jazz’s most enduring and wide-reaching outfits.
The ensemble’s matchless approach to fusion has earned it two Grammy Awards among a slew of nominations. Of the Yellowjackets’ eclectic sensibility, All About Jazz wrote: “From their R&B beginnings in ’81 right through to the sophisticated and utterly distinctive brand of jazz they play today, the Yellowjackets have moved with the times, absorbing different aspects of world music and adding new rhythms and influences to the pot.”
Today the prolific group is comprised of Russell Ferrante on keyboard, Bob Mintzer on sax, Felix Pastorius on bass and William Kennedy on drums.