- It's really fun to just immerse yourself in jazz.
[jazz music]
This is Jazz Fest.
It's the biggest in the Midwest
and fourth largest in the country.
It's a great day filled with a lot of great music and great people.
- It's an amazing opportunity to get to play at this concert.
- All the jazz music that we get to see
and everyone we get to hear, it's just the best.
- You walk out on the stage,
see the audience, and you're like, "Wow."
- Oh, my gosh, I love it.
I make so many new friends every year.
- It kind of just feels like one big happy family.
- A great example of the power that art can have
in a community.
- This is the highlight of our year.
This is what we work all year for
so we try and do our best today.
*
- Jazz Fest in Eau Claire
is funded in part by
David and Susan Manor
in honor of Blaine and Loretta Manor,
Holiday Vacations,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
["Derivations IV Ride Out" by Morton Gould]
*
[cheers and applause]
- So this is the 50th Annual Jazz Fest
and my vision
is to create Disneyland,
so to create an experience
that's a life-changing experience
for anyone who comes here
and to be able to have so much activity
that it's something that they can keep in their memories
for a long time.
- It's a lot of fun.
It's great to meet a lot of different musicians
who share the same passions that you do.
- When it comes together and you get to just spend
this whole day full of your favorite type of music,
it makes it all worth it.
- There are three components
to the Eau Claire Jazz Festival.
There is over 130 bands
that are participating and performing
and attending clinics on how to play this art form much better.
There is 52nd Street, where people can interact
with the musicians and be two feet from
some of the best jazz musicians in the world.
And there's the headliner concerts where
you're in with 1,500 people listening in a large setting
to some of the best jazz music out there.
- Festivals like these are exactly what I want to be doing,
where I can come and I can perform,
but at the same time, I can reach lots of children.
- The size and the scope of the Jazz Festival
is so attractive to young people and old people alike.
It's all the events at once that-- going on
that make it so attractive.
- The competition is fun as well
because you see how you stack up
against other schools, other programs.
- I have a blast.
We've been practicing for three weeks non-stop,
just grinding away at all this stuff.
It's a blast.
- Definitely the opportunity to play my instrument
with my best friends and really have a good time.
Winning's fun and all, but for me,
it's just wanting to get out there
and show everybody what we can do.
- From the time that they come here
to the end of the night concert,
you just want them to be thoroughly exhausted
but not care because of all the great things
that they talked about
and talk about that the whole way home.
And then it's up to their directors
to then take from what was inspired
into action.
- This festival brings us together as a band
and really allows us the extra time that it takes
to put together some quality music.
And they feel very rewarded by being here tonight
and getting to play in the concert
'cause they've put in a lot of time
and so it is a nice thing to be able to showcase.
["Cotton Tail" by Duke Ellington]
*
[cheers and applause]
- We were fortunate enough
to place first in the class B division.
- We haven't won our class before
so it's an amazing opportunity
to get to play at this headliner concert.
- We saw the other competition
and it looked so incredibly tough.
We were gonna be happy with just even placing,
and then when we found out we got first,
it was just, like, unbelievable.
- They work so hard,
and a lot of these kids have been together
for a bunch of years,
coming up through middle school and high school
and they play together, they perform together.
They care about each other. They love each other.
You can just tell when they play.
- It's amazing, I wouldn't trade it for anything.
- We're gonna play "Moanin" by Mingus.
- I think it's gonna go really great; one of our best tunes.
- It's a super fun one. I love the beginning.
[baritone solo]
- There's a bari solo,
and then the rest of us are just like, "Uhh."
It's crazy.
It's super energetic,
and we just rock it, I think.
["Moanin'" by Charles Mingus]
*
[cheers and applause]
- I was a kid who played lots of band instruments.
I played flute and clarinet.
I played string bass in orchestra.
I played trombone in marching band in high school.
So I just loved music,
but when I stepped to the vibraphone the first time,
there was an immediate connection.
I don't know if it's about hand-eye coordination,
or whatever it is,
just very, very quickly, I took to this instrument.
There was something about it that felt physically liberating,
so I felt that connection
and then over time, I think it becomes
a way that you are comfortable expressing your perspective.
There's a certain beauty and warmth in a vibraphone
that I think is very empathetic.
[jazz music]
I am one of the biggest fans on the planet
of this art form.
When you think about an improvising jazz ensemble,
the first thing that we have to deal with
before we think about
interjecting an idea of our own
is we have to first listen and understand the context
in which we would like to contribute.
So it begins and ends with empathy.
That's why, as musicians, we spend the majority of our time
training our ears.
It's not just about what you can do.
It's about understanding other people
and also, it forces us to focus on the things
that we have in common, not the things that divide us.
["The Alchemist" by Stefon Harris]
*
[cheers and applause]
I teach music from the perspective of feeling first,
so that they're in the mindset of emotion
at the very, very beginning.
That's what we are.
I mean, we're emotional engineers, if you will.
Our audiences don't relate to us
because of complicated music theory.
They meet us in the realm of emotion.
So when you're working with kids,
it's very important to start with the idea of feeling.
And then when you're working with two children,
it's all about: not how well you're doing, what you're doing,
but how well can you line up with the person next to you?
Do you understand how they're phrasing
and can you fit inside of what they're doing?
Can you connect to one another?
- It's a lot of fun. It's a great group of kids.
We have a lot of fun just making music together.
- We ended up taking first place in our division,
so I honestly didn't expect this to happen.
- It's the first time we've done any competition
with the jazz group,
and we didn't have any expectations of this or whatnot,
so this is kind of a little extra icing on the cake.
- We're playing "Things Ain't What They Used To Be."
- It's one of my favorites that we've played so far.
- It's a really fun, upbeat tune.
We're gonna play it as a shuffle tonight
and it's definitely high energy.
So we're looking to bring the energy tonight.
["Things Ain't What They Used To Be" by Mercer Ellington]
*
[cheers and applause]
- Jazz is America's only original art form
and we want that to be embedded in people's memories
especially when they're in middle school and high school
because that is the defining moments of their life
and a lot of their direction
that they have for music in general.
["Seņor Blues" by Horace Silver"]
*
[cheers and applause]
- 52nd Street was a one-and-a-half block area
in New York City.
Late 1930's to early 1950's,
a couple of clubs wanted to get this more modern jazz
type of music there for business.
And people would just go from club to club.
The musicians who wanted to learn their craft
did exactly the same thing.
So the musicians that were playing there
brought their horns and they would play
with the various musicians on stage.
This is where Miles Davis got his start.
So our 52nd Street here is a re-creation
of what happened in New York City.
People can interact with the musicians and be two feet from
some of the best jazz musicians in the world.
*
- It's a lot of fun.
- Being in this environment just makes me smile.
- I love this.
I love the tourist attraction that it brings to our town.
- There's music everywhere, too.
It's in little shops as well.
So I think that's a cool part.
- You know, you can hear all different kinds of jazz.
Small jazz in one building and then another one
there's gonna be a big band.
- I'm enjoying the people out here.
I'm enjoying the music.
I'm enjoying the festivities.
- It's great, and there's music on the street.
And it's a nice night,
so it really makes Eau Claire come alive.
- For a jazz musician,
it's the most wonderful feeling.
They all want to come back
because they have very large crowds
right on top of them.
- I think it's a fantastic and amazing
and wonderful thing,
and it's so cool that it's been going on for 50 years.
- A small group of people started it
and it's grown to this event.
I think it's awesome.
- Jazz is the most democratic
music of all
and everyone in a group
is allowed
to present their music or ideas as a soloist.
Improvisation is the important ingredient in jazz.
You can read the music that's on the paper, okay,
that's good as a training mechanism.
But when you stand up and perform a song
and you improvise on that song and develop it,
that's when you're telling your story.
So that's democracy.
You know, they said, "Jazz was dead" when I was a kid
and here I am, getting ready to be 90,
and I see all of the colleges around the world
with jazz programs.
And all these kids are very enthusiastic about learning
from the masters of the past.
So if I can offer anything to them,
an experience and tell them anything,
that keeps the music going.
I think I'm serving my purpose
on being here on the Earth.
["Gingerbread Boy" by Jimmy Heath]
*
[cheers and applause]
- Host: Ladies and gentlemen, the legendary Jimmy Heath.
[cheers and applause]
- You know, music is a thing
that you have to stay with your whole life.
It's gonna be with you until you pass.
*
Music is one of those kind of subjects
and loves that you have in life,
that you're gonna always want to learn something new
and there's always something new.
When you stop learning, it's over.
- I remember being a kid,
and going to some concert
and seeing some musician talk about their lives
and being so enamored with it
and so fascinated and driven
to work really, really hard.
And I always say they coined the phrase absolutely perfectly
when they said, "We play music,"
because this is not work at all.
Absolutely love it.
["On Green Dolphin Street" by Bronislaw Kaper]
*
- Host: Jimmy Heath
and Stefon Harris.
That's what it's supposed to sound like, folks.
- Jazz Fest in Eau Claire
was funded in part by
David and Susan Manor
in honor of Blaine and Loretta Manor,
Holiday Vacations,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.