Jazz students converging on Southeast

Students from 21 schools will visit the campus of Southeast Missouri State University on Friday and Saturday, all in the name of jazz.

The students will come from as far north as St. Louis and as far south as Poplar Bluff, Mo., for the ninth annual Clark Terry/Phi Mu Alpha Jazz Festival at Southeast Missouri State University. Dr. Robert Conger, director of the university's jazz program, said more than 400 middle school and high school students will take part in the festival.

Each of the 21 bands will perform a set for about 20 minutes and receive instruction from the festival's guest jazz professional, trombonist Rodney Lancaster. The performances will take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Academic Hall Auditorium.

Lancaster will also perform with the Southeast Studio Jazz Band and Jazz Lab Band at a concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Academic Hall Auditorium. All concerts are open to the public.

Lancaster is a St. Louis native whose parents reside in Cape Girardeau. During his career he's played with artists like Ella Fitzgerald, the Illinois Jacquet Orchestra, Maynard Ferguson, the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, the Toshiko Akioshi Orchestra, the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and the Nelson Riddle Orchestra.

Improvisation clinic

Conger said the festival's primary objective is to benefit high school students, who will get instruction from Lancaster in a special clinic on improvisation -- an aspect of jazz in which high school graduates are often unprepared.

However, university jazz players will also get exposure to Lancaster -- they'll rehearse with him Thursday and perform with him in concert Friday. And Conger said the festival serves as a powerful recruiting tool by bringing high school students to the university campus and exposing them directly to the jazz program. Conger hopes to have 300 to 500 people in attendance at the Friday night concert including many of the high school students who will attend the festival.

Conger said another guest artist will visit the campus in April -- trumpeter Mark Zauss of Orlando, who Conger calls the successor to Maynard Ferguson.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182