Jazz musicians gather at River Campus for weekend festival

Jazz lovers in Southeast Missouri will be surrounded by it this weekend.

The 11th annual Clark Terry/Phi Mu Alpha Jazz Festival at the Southeast Missouri State University River Campus kicks off at 9 a.m. Friday with high school jazz ensembles, a Southeast Jazz Series Gala Concert and more school group performances from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday.

"School groups are going to come, and they'll be adjudicated for their performance and they're given a clinic with several of our adjudicators as well as guest musicians," said Robert Conger, associate professor of music at Southeast Missouri State University.

Conger said the clinics will help to not only improve the student's performance but their skills at improvisation, as well.

Students from Cape Girardea Central High School and Jackson High School as well as high schools in Farmington, Mo., Herculaneum, Mo., and Charleston, Mo., will perform. Junior high jazz groups from Central, Jackson and Arnold, Mo., will also be featured.

Guitarist Wayne Goins and trumpeter Jim Manley will provide guidance for the young musicians.

"Wayne is a world-class guitar player of great exception who's written several books," Conger said.

Goins works as an associate professor of jazz studies at Kansas State University and is involved in elementary music education. His latest collection of work is "Home Cookin'."

Manley lives in St. Louis and has played with such jazz legends as Maynard Ferguson, a Canadian jazz trumpeter with an impressive range. In recent years, Manley has expanded his repertoire to include band leading and composing/arranging.

"Jim is an outstanding trumpet player, a high-note man. Maynard Ferguson was his hero and he toured with him for a long time," Conger said.

Manley's most current album is "Splendor in the Brass 2," a follow-up to his first album of big band music.

In addition to the performances by the various school bands, the second concert in the Southeast Jazz Series will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday featuring the two guest artists with both the SEMO Jazz Lab Band and the Studio Jazz Ensemble.

Conger, who also plays trombone, will be sitting in that session.

"We'll have a little bit from all the eras," he said. "We're doing an arrangement of 'Secret Love,' which is kind of a bebop standard. We're doing 'Groovin' High,' which was a Dizzy Gillespie hit from the bebop era, and Buddy Rich's version of 'West Side Story Medley'."

Goins and Manley will also sit in on a set with Southeast's Faculty Jazz Quintet, otherwise known as "The Sultans of Swing," from 7 to 10 p.m. today at Buckner Brewing Co.

Admission to the daytime festivities on campus are free, as well as tonight's performance at Buckner's. Both days of the festival will take place at the Bedell Performance Hall on the River Campus.

For more information, contact Conger at 651-2398 or log onto www.semo.edu/music.