Music & Events

JAZZERIE PRESENTS: WHEATON COLLEGE JAZZ ENSEMBLE, MARCH 10, 7:30 P.M.
Collegiate Academy’s Auditorium

ERIE ON NORTHEAST TOUR

The Wheaton College Jazz Ensemble’s tour of the northeast will make a stop in Erie on Sunday, March 10.  The band, which specializes in swinging selections from the songbooks of America’s greatest big bands, will be playing at 7:30 p.m. in Collegiate Academy’s Auditorium as a part of JazzErie’s Next  Generation Concert Series.

“I’m looking forward to coming back onto the stage where I learned so much about jazz,” says bassist Jacob Gordon, an Erie native and Collegiate Academy graduate who played with the JazzErie All Stars at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.  “Playing with the Wheaton College Jazz Ensemble has given me the chance to build on my musical foundations and collaborate with some nationally recognized jazz artists like Dana Hall, Mike Lee and John Wojciechowski.”  Gordon is one of the local young musicians who have come through the ranks of local high school and JazzErie progams to achieve solid performance skills in a nationally recognized Midwestern college music program.

The ensemble, which includes jazz vocalists, will perform selections from the big band music of Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie and Oliver Nelson, as well as early music by Jelly Roll Morton and classic standards as recorded by Peggy Lee, Anita O’Day, Ella Fitzgerald and Helen Forrest.  The band is directed by Josh Mosier, a pianist and composer who has scored music for the Oprah Winfrey Show and for WMS Gaming.

BRUCE JOHNSTONE GUEST SOLOIST

Saxophonist Bruce Johnstone will be guest soloing with the ensemble.  A one-time member of Maynard Ferguson’s Band, as well as with Woody Herman, Anthony Braxton, Michael and Randy Brecker, and others, Johnstone was ranked as the number three baritone saxophonist in Downbeat Magazine Readers’ Poll for ten years.  He lives and works in western New York, where he is head of the Jazz Department at SUNY Fredonia.  He often appears with such groups as the Erie Philharmonic Pops, the Buffalo Brass, and area big bands and small groups.

Tickets will be available at the door for $5.  The concert is sponsored by JazzErie and Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy.