Jazz Notes - DeMiero Jazz Fest March 2

Frank DeMiero
Jazz Notes
A Quarterly Newsletter
Friends of Frank DeMiero
dba DeMiero Jazz Fest
P.O. Box 1442
Edmonds, WA 98020-1442
www.DeMieroJazzFest.org
A 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation
Artistic Director
Dee Daniels
Chief Adminstrative
Officer
Rob Hyatt
Chief Production Officer
Wayne Pumphrey
Board of Directors
W. Joe DeMiero
President
Barbara Kindness
Vice-President
Barb Smith
Secretary
Barbara Hawksford
Treasurer
Jim Braun
Dave Colburn
Patricia Cordova
Vince DeMiero
Tom Hawksford
Thea Henderson
Ken Kraintz
Lynn Melby
Art Mendel
Eric Miller
Harold Modell
Louise Uriu
Creative Consultant
Frank DeMiero
February 28 - March 2, 2013
Dee Daniels
December 2012
The Jazz Cruise Helps Spread
the Word About DeMiero
Jazz Fest
So you love jazz. Imagine that
you have an opportunity to spend
seven days on a cruise ship with
more than 50 of the world’s best
jazz musicians. There are six music venues, and the music starts at
10:30 am and continues until 1:30
am.
There are also opportunties during the week to meet and interact
with artists in a series of Conversations with the Stars.
Jazz is about improvisation. In
addition to planned sets, there are
many instances when artists who
are in the audience are asked to
come to the stage for an impromptu
collaboration.
No, you haven’t died and gone
to heaven. You’ve booked passage
on The Jazz Cruise!
The Jazz Cruise 2013 marks the
12th sailing of this unique opportunity. The cruise leaves Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on Sunday, January 27 to spend seven days in the
Carribbean, making stops at 4 ports
of call.
Artists on this year’s cruise include DeMiero Jazz Fest alumni
Karrin Allyson, Anat Cohen, Freddy Cole, Jeff Hamilton, Jay Leonhart, NewYork Voices, and Byron
Stripling.
The Jazz Cruise attracts jazz
fans from North America, Europe,
and as far away as Australia, and
many of these cruisers come back
year after year to enjoy the experience. In fact, many bring their
instruments and particpate in passenger jam sessions.
Michael Lazaroff, Executive
Director of Entertainment Cruise
Productions, the producers of the
Jazz Cruise, became acquainted
with Friends of Frank DeMiero and
DeMiero Jazz Fest in 2012. Since
this introduction, Lazaroff and his
organization have helped spread
the word about DeMiero Jazz Fest
to their jazz community.
Following last year’s festival,
the Jazz Cruise included an article
about our festival in their newsletter sent to all cruisers, and during
this year’s cruise, a brochure describing DeMiero Jazz Fest will be
distributed to all cruisers.
The support offered by The Jazz
Cruise will help us reach our goal
of becoming the premier jazz choir
festival in North America.
December 2012
Jazz Notes
Page 2
Reflections on the Origins of Jazz Choirs
It is customary at the end of
each calendar year to reflect on the
events of the year and review the
high points and low points as a way
to look to the future.
If this custom really helps us
improve our future efforts, it seems
reasonable as we plan for DeMiero
Jazz Fest 2013, to reflect on the
history of past efforts to help gain
a better appreciation of the path we
are taking and how we proceed on
that path.
With this in mind, we have
asked Frank DeMiero to help us
understand the development of
jazz choirs. The following are the
reflections that Frank has offered in
response to this request.
Frank’s Reflections
As I travel around the world,
I continue to hear, “the Pacific
Northwest is the ‘hot bed’ of vocal jazz or jazz choirs.” Many
point to our area of the world
giving us credit for creating this
art form, and I believe that is
probably true.
I have talked and shared with
folks who remember back in the
late 50s and 60s when choral
groups started singing forms of
jazz. I was one of those directors.
My first group was called
“The Accents.” Not really original, but it worked considering
we sang the song, “You Gotta
Ac-cen-tuate The Positive,” as
our theme song.
The group lasted a whole
summer. They sounded pretty darn good, but were really
square. That was the summer of
1958.
Vocal groups like; the Pennsylvanians conducted by Fred
Warring; the Double Six of
Paris conducted by Mimi Perrin; The Four Freshmen; Lambert, Hendricks and Ross; The
Hi-Lo’s; locally the Axidentals
from Portland and the Signatures from Seattle; Blue Stars
of Paris; Jays with Jamie; John
LaSalle Quartet, and so many
others were inspirational and
exemplary in their performing
of jazz. All of these groups were
five singers or less. Not really
Jazz Choirs!
Instrumental jazz started with
professional bands. College music programs soon included jazz
in their programs and then high
schools, junior highs and now
elementary schools have wonderful jazz band programs
These educational instrumental programs actually started in
the late 40s. The “guys in the
jazz bands” had a pretty good
jump on Jazz Choirs.
Yes, most of the jazz bands
were all guys. That has changed
drastically. The jazz choir movement started in high schools and
community colleges. Choir and
Jazz Band directors wondered
why choirs weren’t singing jazz.
The vocal groups that sang
popular music at that time were
called Pop choirs or Mod Choirs
meaning Modern Choirs.
They sang music from Broadway shows and arrangements
of popular songs. Nothing that
swung!
The Mt. Hood Jazz Choir
Festival, now retired, started in
1968 and soon became a full
fledged jazz choir competitive
festival offering an encouragement for groups to include jazz
in their choral programs.
The biggest concern in “those
days” was the lack of jazz choir
literature or charts. There just
wasn’t published jazz choir music to be found.
Most of us arranged for our
groups. One of the first published charts that I remember
was an Anita Kerr arrangement
of “God Bless The Child.”
It was written with a twelve
eight feel. The chords and
rhythms in this chart were beautifully arranged by this icon in
the choral field.
Ken Kraintz, one of our own
icons in the field of music, was
publishing original charts with
Kysar and Alfred Publications.
He started publishing jazz
choir charts in the late 60s and
is now the co-owner of Sound
Music Publications, considered
the premier producer of jazz
choir charts in the world.
The DeMiero Jazz Fest is
now in its 38th year. It has
gone through a number of name
changes during this time. It was
the first non-competitive jazz
choir festival.
Throughout these many years,
the festival quality and philosophy have not changed. A personal, professional and positive
environment is important and
extended to each student and
each director, beginners to advanced. Positive reinforcement
is the standard.
We look forward to seeing
you at this year’s Festival.
December 2012
It’s almost here. . .
Jazz Notes
Page 3
December 2012
Jazz Notes
Page 4
Volunteers needed for DeMiero Jazz Fest 2013
It’s only December, and Jazz
Fest isn’t until the end of February. So why should we be concerned about identifying volunteers for the festival at this early
date?
The goal of the Festival is
to ensure that all attendees,
whether participants, faculty,
guest artists, or audience have a
memorable, positive experience
that will generate enthusiasm
for participating in jazz as a performer or listener.
To achieve this goal, the Festival must run like a well-oiled
machine. Participants must feel
welcomed and supported from
the time they arrive at the Festival site until they are safely on
their buses for the return home.
Guest artists and faculty must
also feel assured that whatever
“complication” might arise,
they will have the support necessary to identify personnel and
resources necessary to deal with
the situation in a professional,
timely fashion.
Members of the general community who visit Festival activities or attend evening concerts
must also feel welcomed.
The success of past festivals
has depended on the amazing
volunteers who donate their
time and energy to support our
efforts.
Jazz Fest 2013 will bring
new challenges. As described
in the last issue of Jazz Notes,
the Festival is expanding to in-
ticipate in the workshops. What
clude more opportunities for
an eye-opener -- I was so imparticipants to actively engage
pressed!”
in learning and performing activities. The number of venues
“I was pleased to be a part of
the FOFD festival as a volunteer
will increase to accommodate
this last March. The program is
these new activities, and help
so well organized and run that
will be needed to guide particiit all seems to flow seamlessly.
pants to where they need to be at
There are so many ways to get
a given time. In addition, help
involved, and since I was working the hospitality room I got to
will be needed to make sure that
meet and visit with a few of the
the logistics at each of the venartists and clinicians, and to see
ues are in place so that activities
the master performances of sevrun smoothly.
eral of the artists. What a treat it
As a result, success of the
was to see the students learning
from the masters and teachers.”
Festival will depend on a greater number of volunteers than in
How to become involved
past years who are well prepared
Becoming a member of the
to deal with the challenges that Friends of Frank DeMiero volunarise during the event.
teer corps is easy. All you have
What are the rewards?
Volunteers at past festivals
have been very enthusiastic
about their experience. Two
samples of volunteer feedback provide an indication of
the rewards of helping at the
Festival:
“I volunteered to work the Frank
DeMiero Jazz Festival. I had no
idea what the festival was about
... I just thought I’d hang out and
help out ...
Wow, was I in for a treat! I could
hardly believe all the excited,
wholesome young people from
all over the Northwest singing
together, having such a great
time and learning more about
what they obviously loved from
the professional jazz musicians.
So much talent everywhere I
looked...and so much fun watching the kids perform and par-
to do is contact Louise Uriu, our
volunteer coordinator, and tell
Louise that you want to become a
volunteer. There are many different tasks to be done, and the time
investment that you make is determined by you.
Please consider joining us for
Jazz Fest 2013. Louise’s email address is: [email protected].
Help Support Jazz
Fest 2013
Tell your favorite merchants
about Jazz Fest and suggest that
they place an ad in the DeMiero
Jazz Fest 2013 Festival Program.
Participants from all over the
Northwest will appreciate their
support for this unique music experience for young people.
Contact Barbara Kindness
([email protected]) for
details.