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As students may or may not be aware, April is "Jazz Appreciation Month." University of Missouri-St. Louis helped celebrate this by co-sponsoring a jazz festival, as they have for the last five years. This year, the festival featured guitarist/vocalist John Pizzarelli, trumpeter Jon Faddis, drummer Peter Erskine, and Blues Brother icon Lou Marini. The UM-St. Louis Jazz Ensemble, directed by Jim Widner, also made an appearance. The clinics and classes during the daytime of the festival were free, and tickets for the evening professional concerts were $10-$15-$25.
The festival took place from Thursday April 16 until Saturday April 18, (but the nights on which professional musicians performed were Friday and Saturday) at the Touhill Performing Arts Center and the Anheuser-Busch & Lee Theaters on UM-St. Louis campus. This year, the festival was co-sponsored by alumni Steve Shankman, president of Contemporary Productions, who donated 50,000 dollars. Contemporary Productions is an entertainment booking and special event company.
Part of Shankman's donation will be used to pay for artists who appeared as guest players at the festival and part of the contribution will also be used towards scholarships for music students as well as music equipment for students to play and practice on.
Shankman also started the Meynard Ferguson Music scholarship at UM-St. Louis in a past donation to the music department of UM-St. Louis of 50,000 dollars. In a media release to the public on the St. Louis Greater Jazz Festival Shankman said,
"With this being the sixth year of the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival and the desire to bring jazz to St. Louis, I want to help professionally and financially to perpetuate jazz in the greater St. Louis Region."
In the media release, Jim Widner, director and creator of the festival agreed and said that Shankman's "continuous generosity has gone a long way in helping us give the best education possible to our jazz students and provide a unique learning environment."
This year, UM-St. Louis' Greater Jazz Festival is the only jazz festival in St. Louis. There are over 750 students from 45 different groups and 33 different schools who participated as well as several professional players as well. The festival has grown so large, and attracted so much positive attention that in previous years, a wait list for participating schools had to be created.
"The interest from participating schools has exceeded our expectations," Widner said.
Shankman explained that he feels the festival is important because it gives students and community members an opportunity to attend jazz concerts. Shankman also explained that the festival can be conducive to students who are in the music program at UM-St. Louis and it can help to open new doors for them.
"The main reason for the jazz festival is to educate and inspire young musicians to continue with their music and become the next breed of jazz musicians in this country," Shankman said.
Jon Faddis will be one of the several professional players that audience members of the Jazz Festival will have the chance to hear. Faddis made a similar statement to that of Shankman's explaining that he too felt that festivals such as the one UM-St. Louis held this weekend helped to enrich the lives of both students and community members.
"I think it is important [to people] because it is part of their history as musicians and as Americans and this art form is one of our greatest gifts to the world. I think it helps the students [especially] to rise above many many things and become better people [and musicians] because of this music".
Faddis is originally from Oakland, Cal. and has been playing the trumpet for around 48 years. Faddis also plays other instruments like the piccolo or others in the trumpet family such as the cornet.
He has never played at this particular festival but he did play at the Bistro with Jim Widner, director of the festival, last time that he was in St. Louis.
In previous years the festival has featured over 49 musicians from across the United States of America, including: Clark Terry, Marilyn Maye, Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, Buddy DeFranco, Mulgrew Miller, Tom Scott, Shelly Ber, and others.
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