Jazz Northwest, the Washington State University faculty jazz ensemble, will perform in a special summer concert at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 20 in Kimbrough Concert Hall. The concert is free and open to the public.
The group includes vocalist Jennifer Scovell, saxophonist Greg Yasinitsky, woodwind artist and vocalist Horace-Alexander Young, trumpeter David Turnbull, pianist Charles Argersinger, percussionist Dave Jarvis and bassist David Snider, all WSU faculty members.
Individually, the members of Jazz Northwest have performed with top figures in jazz, including Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Lionel Hampton, Abdullah Ibrahim, McCoy Tyner, Jon Faddis and others. The ensemble has performed at Experience Music Project in Seattle and regularly appears at festivals, conferences and schools throughout the Pacific Northwest.
The program will include original compositions and arrangements of jazz standards created especially for Jazz Northwest by members of the group. Featured will be Scovell’s original songs “The Reason Why” and “While We Can” and her arrangement of the Beatles’ tune “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away.” Young’s arrangement of Stevie Wonder’s “Bird of Beauty” will highlight the group’s two vocalists. Argersinger also contributed arrangements to the program, including settings of the standards “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To” and “All or Nothing at All.”
The program will also include a new arrangement of Dizzy Gillespie’s “Con Alma” by Yasinitsky and “Samba for the Children,” composed by Jarvis.
