Dizzy Gillespie™ All-Star Big Band Performs Jazz Classics October 28
October 13, 2009
The Dizzy Gillespie™ All-Star Big Band brings together deluxe musicians to celebrate the legacy of a jazz master’s repertoire in a concert at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28, in Penn State’s Eisenhower Auditorium. Trombonist, composer and arranger Slide Hampton directs the band, which features trumpeter Roy Hargrove and saxophonists James Moody and Jimmy Heath.
Moody, who performed with Gillespie from 1947 to 1992; Heath, who also played with Diz; and Hampton, a native of suburban Pittsburgh, are each National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters. The big band also includes pianist Cyrus Chestnut, trombonist Steve Davis, singer Roberta Gambarini, saxophonist Antonio Hart, bassist John Lee, trumpeter Terell Stafford and other outstanding jazz musicians.
Tickets for the Center for the Performing Arts presentation are $43 for an adult, $20 for a University Park student and $36 for a person 18 and younger. Buy tickets online at www.cpa.psu.edu or by phone at 814-863-0255. Outside the local calling area, dial 1-800-ARTS-TIX. Tickets are also available at four State College locations: Eisenhower Auditorium (weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.), Penn State Tickets Downtown (weekdays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.), HUB-Robeson Center (weekdays 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.) and Bryce Jordan Center (weekdays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.). A grant from the University Park Allocation Committee makes Penn State student prices possible.
John Birks Gillespie, who died in 1993, was one of the most beloved musicians of the 20th century. He was an inventive and inspirational trumpeter, a composer of musical masterpieces and a man whose generosity of spirit garnered legions of friends.
Many of the big band’s arrangements are vintage pieces created during the heyday of Gillespie’s large ensembles of the 1940s and 1950s. While those arrangements are more than fifty years old, they continue to stimulate and challenge today’s jazz musicians and dazzle and delight audiences.
Corvette America underwrites jazz presentations at the Center for the Performing Arts. WTAJ Your News Leader and Jazz Spectrum on THE LION 90.7 FM are the media sponsors for the concert. Artistic Viewpoints, an informal moderated discussion featuring bassist John Lee and saxophonist James Moody, is offered in Eisenhower Auditorium one hour before the performance and is free for ticket holders.
Contact: Laura Sullivan, 814.863.6379