JUNE 4-6, 2010
CJI proudly announces its Legends Festival – a series of exciting events scheduled for June 4-6. A 30-member group of arts, business and cultural leaders in Charleston are working with CJI to host these unprecedented events. Co-chaired by Dorothy Harrison (Chief Administrative Officer for the Charleston Water System) and John Tecklenburg (commercial realtor with Clement, Crawford & Thornhill, Inc.), the Legends Festival offers live jazz, educational events, a master class and original musical, cabaret affair, exhibition, and a Gala — something for everyone! The Legends Festival is an event of the City of Charleston’s Piccolo Spoleto Festival and the College of Charleston’s School of the Arts 20th Anniversary.
To Purchase Tickets
Online www.piccolospoleto.com Phone (843) 724-7295 Purchase tickets by June 1st
Highlights Include:
- Florence native, tenor saxophonist, and two-time Grammy nominee, Houston Person will appear in Charleston for the first time in 35 years
- An exhibition of CJI’s collection at Avery will be held with a talk by the legendary Heath Brothers
- “The Charleston,” an original production performed by 180 4th graders from the Hilton Head Island School of the Creative Arts will tell the story of the Jenkins Orphanage Bands
- A cabaret to celebrate the career of Charleston native, clarinetist, and widely-recognized big band arranger, Joseph “Fud” Livingston
- The patriarch of THE New Orleans jazz family, Ellis Marsalis will keynote our Gala
- Jimmy Heath and Slide Hampton, National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters (the highest award our country gives to jazz musicians) will appear with CJI’s Legends Band – a big band led by Charlton Singleton, a musician with CJI since 2003, and the bandleader of the Charleston Jazz Orchestra
- CJI Legends Band, an intergenerational mix of those who helped develop our city’s jazz legacy (Lonnie Hamilton, Joey Morant, George Kenny, Ann Caldwell and others) alongside “the young cats” (Quentin Baxter, Mark Sterbank, Kevin Hamilton, Tommy Gill and others) will perform and record a live concert. The concert will include Heath’s “Without You, No Me,” his tribute to Cheraw native, Dizzy Gillespie, and Hampton’s CJI-commissioned tune. Hampton’s world premiere will be the first time a jazz commission has been composed by an NEA Jazz Master for a Charleston performance!
We’ll see you at the Legends Festival! FULL SCHEDULE »
More Info
To be a sponsor, advertiser or for more information, contact Dr. Karen Chandler, chandlerk@cofc.edu,karen@charlestonjazz.net or 843-953-4843
]]>
Group Code: CHASJAZZ
Online Booking Instructions:
- Click on www.francismarioncharleston.com
- Enter arrival and departure dates and click “Check Availability”
- On top of next screen click “Group Block”
- Scroll down, reconfirm dates, enter group code and click “next”
- The room types and rates will display for the group-click “continue” to confirm reservation
- NOTE: The online group code may not be accepted if the requested reservation contains nights outside the contracted group dates. Please call 1-877-756-2121 for personal assistance.
Learn about our musicians
Over 50 musicians are profiled with bios, images, videos and more
musicians home »
Explore our collections
]]>Legends Festival
June 4-6, 2010
learn more »
If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, advertiser or donor, please download the reply and order forms and return:
We would like to thank the following sponsors for their generous support:
FRIDAY, JUNE 4
11-1 pm, South Carolina’s Jazz Legend: Houston Person LIVE!
Hear Florence, SC native, tenor saxophonist and two-time Grammy finalist Houston Person perform and discuss his career with CJI’s Jack McCray at this Jazz Garden Luncheon.
Stern Center Gardens College of Charleston – 71 George Street
$35-adults / $15-students
Suggested Attire: Summer White/Splash of Color!
3:30-5 pm, JazzEd Fest: The Charleston
80 4th graders from Hilton Head Island School for the Creative Arts perform “The Charleston” – an original musical about Charleston’s acclaimed Jenkins Orphanage Bands.
The Sottile Theatre / College of Charleston – 44 George Street
Free
5 – 6:30 pm, JazzEd Fest: Legends Master Class
Slide Hampton and Jimmy Heath, world-class bandleaders and National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters, discuss their careers, and composing and arranging techniques with musicians.
Marion and Wayland H. Cato, Jr. Center for the Arts (Room 234)
161 Calhoun Street / College of Charleston
Free
Limited Seating info@charlestonjazz.net to RSVP or (843) 953-4843 by June 1.
8-10 pm, Preserving South Carolina’s Jazz Legacy
View photographs, letters, music scores, and other material from CJI’s Collection…features a talk with the legendary Heath Brothers — tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath and drummer/percussionist Albert “Tootie” Heath…and book signing (I Walked With Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath).
Avery Research Center / College of Charleston – 125 Bull Street
Free
SATURDAY, JUNE 5
7-11 pm, Nothin’ Could Be Finer
CJI’s Legends Festival Gala features…Cocktail Reception (7:00) and Program (8:00) with Ellis Marsalis, patriarch of New Orleans’ jazz family… Legends Band Concert and Live Recording…Premiere of Slide Hampton’s Legends Festival composition… Performance of Jimmy Heath’s “Without You, No Me,” a tribute to Dizzy Gillespie… and guest performances by Houston Person, Joey Morant, John Williams, and more!
The Sottile Theatre / College of Charleston – 44 George Street
$50
Suggested Attire: Black Tie Optional
SUNDAY, JUNE 6
6-8 pm, Charleston’s Songwriter/Arranger: Joseph “Fud” Livingston
This cabaret affair celebrates Livingston’s illustrious career as a big band arranger during the swing era…features Brad Kay, career pianist and author of the CD liner notes for Fud Livingston (Jazz Oracle, 2009).
Riviera Theater 225 King Street
$20.
← This video is presented courtesy of the Fox Movietone News Collection at the University of South Carolina’s Newsfilm Library. To learn more about this video, and many other historic videos, be sure to visit their website: sc.edu/library/newsfilm
]]>Charleston Jazz sets out to reveal the rich, untold story of the evolution of American jazz in one of its major cradles: Charleston, South Carolina. The text and images, many from CJI’s archival collection, show that what happened on the Gullah coast of South Carolina in terms of history, culture, and entertainment had a huge impact on jazz as we know it today.
Discover Charleston’s jazz legacy in this new photographic history by CJI’s own, Jack McCray. He has dedicated three decades to examining and preserving the Charleston tradition through the prism of its jazz legacy and has written about jazz as a longtime reporter and editor at Charleston, South Carolina’s Post and Courier.
]]>From Gullah-Geechee rhythms to Freddie Green’s “Corner Pocket,” and Julian Dash’s tenor saxophone career, Charleston, South Carolina has a rich jazz history but it is not well known. Charleston: A Cradle of Jazz – CJI’s first publication chronicles this little known legacy of Charleston’s ensemble musicians who helped create American jazz with Duke Ellington, Count Basie and other big bands of the era.
Charleston’s Jenkins Orphanage and its widely-acclaimed bands, and the Avery Normal Institute, were institutions that helped develop the skills of these early jazz musicians.
Charleston: A Cradle of Jazz acknowledges that New Orleans could not have been the only crucible for American swing…players at Jenkins and Avery were swinging melodies five years before Louis Armstrong was born!
These proceedings from CJI’s official launch in 2005 feature the writing of internationally-recognized jazz historians, musicians and critic as well as Jenkins family members, former residents, and musicians. Included are:
- Jack McCray, Co-Principal of CJI; jazz and features writer, book reviewer and copy editor for Charleston’s Post and Courier
- Scott Shanklin-Peterson, Director and Associate Professor, Arts Management Program, College of Charleston
- A.B. Spellman, poet, critic and author; former Deputy Chairman of the Office of Guidelines and Panel Operations, National Endowment for the Arts
- Dan Morgenstern, Director of the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University
- Jeffrey Green, British historian; biographer of Edmund Thornton Jenkins: The Life and Times of An American Black Composer, 1894-1926
- Wolfram Knauer, musicologist; Director of the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt (Germany)
- Alvin Batiste, clarinetist, composer and educator; New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts
- Larry Ridley, bassist; Executive Director of the African American Jazz Caucus, Inc., an affiliate of the International Association for Jazz Education; Jazz Artist in Residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library
Plus “Conversations in Jazz” with the late Elizabeth Carter Prioleau, Rollins Edwards, Stanley White, Barbara Braithwaite, Jomo Zimbabwe and Rachel Dowling.
]]>