2013 John Moawad Jazz Festival

Jazz Band Day
Friday, May 17, 2013

Vocal Jazz Day
Saturday,  May 18, 2013

The John Moawad invitational Jazz Festival is open to all high school jazz bands, combos and choirs; and middle school/junior high jazz bands and combos, by invitation. If you have received an invitation email from us, you are invited! If you wish to be invited, please contact us using the phone number or email address below. For all the details, please check our Festival Information page.

Register Online

Jazz Band Day - Friday
Guest Artist - Wycliffe Gordon

Trombone player Wycliffe Gordon is best known for his work with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, under the direction of jazz maestro, Wynton Marsalis. The versatile trombonist can scat, multi-note, slide, and plunge, just like he stepped out of the 1930s. Gordon has played with many jazz luminaries, including Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Henderson, Branford Marsalis,Lionel Hampton, Tommy Flanagan, and Shirley Horn. His musical colleagues call him "Pine Cone," since he grew up in the piney woods of Georgia.

It must have been this Ellington era quality that caught the ears of jazz educator Wynton Marsalis, who heard Gordon play while the trumpeter was giving a workshop at Gordon's alma mater, Florida A&M University. Their fortuitous meeting resulted in Gordon joining the Wynton Marsalis Septet, as well as the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, in 1989. As a member of the illustrious band, Gordon contributed as both musician and composer. Gordon, who like Charles Mingus says he hears music in his head all the time, has managed to write some of it down, and then hear it performed all over the world by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Whether they know it or not, National Public Radio fans are familiar with the musician's work: In 1993, Gordon composed the NPR theme song.

Vocal Jazz Day - Saturday
Guest Artist - Sara Gazarek

Championed by some of music’s most celebrated figures, Sara Gazarek has emerged as a strikingly original artist with limitless potential. With three highly acclaimed CD’s under her belt at the young age of 30, Sara and her trio continue to seamlessly combine the intimacy of singer/songwriter stylings with the musical and improvisational elements of jazz. Blessed with a gorgeous, translucent voice, excellent pitch, and supple sense of time, Gazarek is steeped in the jazz tradition, but is not afraid to embrace the music that moves her generation. Sara is currently on faculty at the University of Southern California, leading the award-winning vocal jazz ensemble there, and teaching privately.

2013 Adjudicator-Clinicians

Friday, May 17 (Jazz Band Day)

• Dave Barduhn, MHCC retired
• Susie Jones, MHCC retired
• Mike Mines, Valley View MS
• Brian Kirk, Seattle Central CC
• Randy Hobbs, Columbia Basin College
• Al Aldridge, Prairie HS retired

For more information:
Festival Director
Chris Bruya
509-963-1426
e-mail bruyac@cwu.edu

Saturday, May 18 (Vocal Jazz Day)

• Dave Barduhn, MHCC retired
• Dave Cross, Everett SD retired
• Tom Almli, Bellevue College
• Susie Jones, MHCC retired