Nearly 60 high school, junior high school, and middle school instrumental jazz
ensembles will perform during the 34th Annual
Tri-State Jazz Festival. The competition
will begin at 8 a.m. and continue throughout the afternoon both days in Eppley
Auditorium and the Randolph Room of the Olsen Student Center,
3609 Peters Avenue.
The top two Northwest Iowa bands in each high school class will advance to
the 2006 Iowa High School Jazz Championships to
be held April 18 in Des Moines.
Dr.
Gerry Bouma, professor and chair
of music at Morningside, is the director
of the Morningside Jazz Festival.
The Morningside Jazz
Band is directed by Peter Hittle,
a 1978 Morningside graduate. The band will be joined by renowned saxophonist Roger
Neumann, a 1962 Morningside graduate and a recipient of the college’s
2005 Distinguished Alumni Award. Neumann is a tenor saxophonist with The Headliners.
The members of The
Headliners will serve as adjudicators and clinicians
for the festival. The Headliners’personnel includes:
Tony
Gulizia, piano and keyboards; Joey
Gulizia, percussion; Andy
Hall, bass; Kirk Garrison,
trumpet; and Neumann.
Dr. Robert Miller, a retired
music educator and jazz saxophone performer
who resides in Washington, and Pete Whitman,
who heads the brass and woodwinds department
at Musictech College in St. Paul, Minn.,
will also serve as adjudicators.
Neumann resides in Santa
Clarita, Calif., where he is in constant
demand as a jazz saxophonist, arranger and
composer. He was the lead saxophonist for
the Woody Herman band, worked with the back-up
band for the Beach Boys, and has performed
with the bands of Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Carter,
Bob Crosby, Les Brown, and Ray Anthony. Neumann
has written arrangements for Ray Charles,
Count Basie, Buddy Rich, Ray Brown, and The
Beach Boys.
Tony and Joey Gulizia have performed and taught for 21 years as the Gulizia
Brothers. In 1979 they began working with the Nebraska Arts Council in the
Artists in Schools program. By 1990 their involvement in music programs for
youth had grown to leadership in the Mid-America Arts Alliance spanning a
seven-state region.
Tony
Gulizia resides in Colorado and
is a music educator with the Eagle County
School District. Joey Gulizia resides in
Omaha, Neb., and is a regular featured artist
with the Omaha Symphony, Nebraska Jazz Orchestra,
and Nebraska Brass.
Hall, the jazz bass instructor
at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, has
played bass with nationally known jazz vocalist
Marilyn Maye for the past 23 years. He has
recorded with Marilyn Maye, The Nebraska
Jazz Orchestra, The Headliners, and The Jazz
Factory and performed with artists such as
Chuck Berry, The Four Lads, The Four Freshman,
Doc Severinson, The Count Basie Orchestra,
Rosemary Clooney, and Peter Nero.
Garrison is a professional
musician in the Chicago area. He is an artist
and clinician for The Music Group and is
an adjunct professor at DePaul University
in Chicago, Concordia University in River
Forest, Ill., and South Suburban College
in South Holland, Ill. He served a nine-year
career with the United States Air Force Band
and was musical director for a select band
deployed to the Middle East during operation
Desert Storm. He has performed with the likes
of Michael Bolton, Aretha Franklin, Marvin
Hamlisch, Ben E. King, Herbie Hancock, Bob
Hope, Johnny Mathis, Dianne Schuur, Clark
Terry, Barry White, Vanessa Williams, Stevie
Wonder, and The Temptations.
The festival is sponsored by Morningside College, Ray’s Mid-Bell Music,
Jay’s Music, McNally Smith College of Music, Western Iowa Tech Community
College, T’s 2 Pleeze, Schmitt Music, and Morningside’s Academic
and Cultural Arts Series (ACAS).
The
festival is sanctioned by the Iowa High School
Music Association and is the Northwest Iowa
preliminary contest for the Iowa High School
Jazz Championships. The festival is also approved
by South Dakota, Minnesota, and Nebraska high
school associations.
For additional information, contact Bouma at
712-274-5218.
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