PULLMAN, Wash. — The award-winning Washington State University Vocal Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Big Band will present a concert Oct. 6 on the WSU campus. The 8 p.m. program, set for Bryan Hall Auditorium, is open to the public without charge.
The concert will open with the WSU Vocal Jazz Ensemble, VOJAZZ, directed by Horace Alexander Young, a new member of the WSU music faculty.
A graduate of the university, Young has served as musical director and soloist with such artists as Bill Withers, The Manhattans, Regina Belle, Johnny Kemp, the McCoy Tyner Big Band, Yousssou N’ Dor, Jonathan Butler, Mark Ledford and Abdullah Ibrahim (a.k.a. Dollar Brand).
VOJAZZ will present new arrangements of the jazz standards “Invitation” and “Giant Steps” and an a cappella treatment of Leonard Bernstein’s “Somewhere” from the musical “West Side Story” as arranged for the ensemble by the group’s pianist and assistant director Sonja Ramirez.
The Jazz Big Band, directed by Gregory Yasinitsky, WSU coordinator of jazz studies, will present a program featuring blues including “Back from the Apple,” written for the Count Basie Band by Frank Foster; “Stolen Moments” by Oliver Nelson; “Blues for Miz Charlie” by Frank Fisher; and a new tune, “Squirrelly,” written for the band by Yasinitsky. The band will also perform “Rachael,” a ballad by Sammy Nestico. Soloists will include bassist Tracie King; guitarist Leb Borgerson; trombonist Bryan Long; drummer Chris Earley; trumpeters Greg Duncan and Tom Barber; and saxophonists Eric Skidmore, Jeremy Hamilton, Mike Lukich and Steve Erwin.
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