Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival
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The Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival is an annual jazz festival that takes place on the campus of the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho in the month of February. Its current Artistic Director is John Clayton.[1]
In 2007, was awarded the National Medal of Arts, the nation’s most prestigious arts award.[2]
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[edit] About the festival
The Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival is a 40-year old tradition at the University of Idaho. Each year in February, thousands of college, high school, junior high and elementary school students travel from all over the U.S. and Canada to the Palouse campus and meet great jazz performers, partake in vocal and instrumental adjudicated performances, and attend concerts and workshops.
The first University of Idaho Jazz Festival took place in 1967; it was a single-day event consisting of fifteen student groups and one jazz artist in a sole evening concert. The festival now runs four days and features seven concerts. Some of the jazz greats who have performed at the festival include Ella Fitzgerald, Gerry Mulligan, Dizzy Gillespie, Elvin Jones, Freddie Hubbard, Dianne Reeves, Stan Getz, Carmen McRae, Joey DeFrancesco, Benny Green, Hank Jones, Roy Hargrove, Diana Krall, Wynton Marsalis and Sarah Vaughan and of course the eponymous Lionel Hampton and his New York Big Band, who first played at the festival in 1984. The festival was renamed for Hampton in 1985, and the UI's school of music was renamed for him in 1987.
[edit] Adjudicated performances
The adjudicated performances span four days and typically involve approximately 14,000 students from more than 300 schools, in addition to numbers of music teachers, parents, supporters, and friends. Elementary, middle and junior high school vocal and instrumental groups compete Wednesday, and Thursday is devoted to college day. High school vocal groups compete Friday and high school jazz bands are featured Saturday.
Adjudicated performances are held at more than eighteen sites on the UI campus and in the town of Moscow. The outstanding ensembles, determined by the adjudicators, perform at the afternoon concerts on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Outstanding vocal and instrumental soloists take the stage with the professionals at the evening concerts.
[edit] Workshops
Workshops by guest artists are a major emphasis of the jazz festival. The workshops provide an opportunity for jazz masters and students to meet in casual yet structured settings. Artists have the freedom to discuss, perform, demonstrate techniques, and answer questions. Nearly every guest artist presents at least one clinic during the festival. After his clinic at the 1997 festival, guitarist Herb Ellis said the festival was the only one of its kind in the world where jazz greats had the chance to sit down with students and directly share their experience and knowledge.
[edit] Legacy
The festival, besides establishing itself as one of the premier festivals of its kind in the world, also spawned similar protege festivals such as the Sitka Jazz Festival in Sitka, Alaska.
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