Jazz Legends

There's lots of jazz to go around at this year's Piccolo Spoleto Festival.

At the heart of it all is the Charleston Jazz Initative's Legends Festival, a three-day extravaganza of top-flight music, theater and education, all rooted in South Carolina's rich jazz history and legacy.

CJI, a local research project based at the College of Charleston, is marking seven years of work on mining the Palmetto State jazz tradition.

And it wants to share the celebration with the world through the outreach of Piccolo, the annual Lowcountry ritual.

The Legends Festival party also includes the 20th anniversary of the C of C's School of the Arts.

Led by Dr. Karen Chandler, SOA professor, this CJI series of events is poised to cut an even wider swath than it already has in its first seven years of documenting the South Carolina jazz story.

Blockbuster

Legends brings together an unprecedented mix of local, regional, national and international jazz luminaries, all with connections or scholarly interests in the South Carolina story, including today's scene.

Never before has there been such a jazz presence in the state.

Beyond the performances, talks, exhibitions and presentations, the general vibe of the mini fest promises to be exhilarating.

What you'll have in the heart of the Historic District -- at the Sottille Theatre, Stern Center Garden, Francis Marion Hotel, Avery Research Center , Cato Center and Riviera Theater -- is a palpable energy field that comes about when a large number of people who are really good at what they do congregate to work and play in a small area.

Participants run the gamut of notables from all segments of the jazz culture industry.

CJI advisers at the party will include Jeffrey P. Green, British historian; Dan Morgenstern, author and director of the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University; Wolfram Knauer, Ph.D., author and director of the Jazz-Institut, Darmstadt, Germany; A.B. Spellman, former deputy director, National Endowment for the Arts, author and critic; and Larry Ridley, Ph.D., bassist and executive director of the African American Jazz Caucus, New York.

Add to the mix 25 world-class musicians and sparks should fly.

High notes

One of those 25 is Slide Hampton, a Grammy-winning arranger and trombonist. He is also a legendary composer. He has been commissioned by CJI to write a piece for the festival.

So on June 5, after a performance by the CJI Legends Band, the American jazz canon will include a master work by a renowned composer who was inspired by South Carolina. It's called "Gullah Suite: A Tribute to Buddy Johnson & John Birks 'Dizzy' Gillespie."

Slide cut his musical teeth with the late, great Buddy Johnson, a Darlington native, and his band in the mid-1950s.

The Legends Band is conducted by Charlton Singleton, conductor of the Lowcountry's resident big band, The Charleston Jazz Orchestra.

After receiving the music, Charlton remarked, "It looks fabulous! We have to remember, and I am quoting John Williams (band member) from a conversation that we had ... about Slide, 'Slide is a genius.' Enough said. I became a fan of his work when I heard a few arrangements that he did for the Joe Henderson Big Band project. Just the fanfares before the tunes kicked in were enough to stop me in my tracks. His writing is second to none, and I am still awestruck that he is writing for us."

Festival participants Hampton, Morgenstern and Jimmy Heath are National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters, the highest award in the United States. Spellman even has an NEA Jazz Master advocacy award named after him, one of which went to Morgenstern.

Another noteworthy performance by the band that night will be Heath's "Without You, No Me," an homage to Dizzy Gillespie, South Carolina's most famous jazz musician.

Like Hampton's premiere, Heath's song has never been performed and recorded in South Carolina.

Heath, who will be joined by his brother, Albert, in Charleston, will discuss his new book, "I Walked With Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath" (Temple 2010), with this reporter before an audience at the Avery on June 4.

Earlier that day at the Stern Center Garden, Florence native Houston Person, regarded by many as one of the greatest living saxophone players, will talk a bit about his life in jazz and play with local masters Quentin Baxter, Tommy Gill and Kevin Hamilton at a catered luncheon. Person hasn't played Charleston since he worked the old Myskyns 35 years ago.

Closing the festival on June 6 will be a tribute to Charleston composer Joseph "Fud" Livingston at the Riviera Theater.

Charlestonian John Tecklenburg, who co-chairs the festival with Dorothy Harrison, has produced this presentation. This event will honor the life and career of the clarinetist who arranged for many big bands of the 1930s and 1940s including Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and Paul Whiteman. Brad Kay, Los Angeles-based career pianist, will present a talk with live interpretations of Fud's career.

Schedule

Here's a list of Legends activities:

South Carolina's Legend: Houston Person, LIVE!, June 4, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at the College of Charleston's Stern Center Gardens (71 George St.), $35 adults, $15 students plus $1 surcharge. The event will highlight Person's role as a two-time Grammy nominee and his years growing up in Florence.

JazzEd Fest: The Charleston, June 4, 3:30-5 p.m. at the College of Charleston's Sottile Theatre (44 George St.), free. This event is an original musical that interprets the story of Charleston's Jenkins Orphanage Bands including dances that evolved from West Africa to Charleston including the Cakewalk, the Charleston and the Black Bottom by 180 fourth-graders from the Hilton Head Island School for the Creative Arts. Playwright and Hilton Head Creative Arts teacher Patti Maurer worked with CJI's Dr. Karen Chandler to produce the musical originally performed by third-graders at HHISCA in February 2009. It was a 2008-09 Distinguished Arts Program of the South Carolina Department of Education using dance, music and social studies curriculum standards.

JazzEd Fest: Legends Master Class, June 4, 5-6:30 p.m. at the C of C's Marion and Wayland H. Cato Jr. Center for the Arts, Room 234, (161 Calhoun St.), free/limited seating. Hampton and Heath will discuss their careers and composing and arranging techniques with musicians and the public.

Preserving South Carolina's Jazz Legacy, June 4, 8-10 p.m. at the Avery Research Center (125 Bull St.), free. It will include an exhibition of photographs, letters, music scores, oral histories and other source material from CJI's archival collection.

The collection, Charleston's only comprehensive jazz archive, documents jazz in Charleston and South Carolina from 1891 to the present and contains more than 1,000 items. The event also will include the formal gifting of CJI's Livingston Collection.

The collection will be donated to CJI from the families of Tecklenburg and Leonard Long, great-nephews of Livingston.

Also, this event will include a talk by the legendary Heath Brothers (Heath and his brother and drummer/percussionist, Albert "Tootie" Heath) about their performing, touring and recording careers with many South Carolina musicians including Gillespie. Heath will discuss his recent book and autograph copies of "I Walked With Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath." The talk also will include a commentary by Charlestonian Dr. Wilmot "Al" Fraser, co-author with Gillespie of "To Be or Not to Bop: Memoirs of Dizzy Gillespie" (Doubleday, 1979).

Nothin' Could Be Finer, a Legends Festival Gala, June 5, 7-11 p.m. at C of C's Sottile Theatre (44 George St.), $50 plus $1 surcharge, free for students with ID/RSVP required.

Black tie optional, the gala will begin at 7 p.m. with a pre-performance reception, followed by a program at 8 p.m. featuring a keynote commentary by special guest Ellis Marsalis. New Orleans' jazz patriarch, renowned pianist and educator, Marsalis is regarded as the premier modern jazz pianist in New Orleans.

The gala also will feature a Legends Band Concert, a 90-minute, 18-piece big band performance and live recording. The musicians are local and internationally recognized instrumentalists including Person; trumpeter Joey Morant; John Williams, baritone saxophonist and 25-year veteran of the Count Basie Orchestra and Orangeburg native; saxophonists Lonnie Hamilton III, George Kenny and Oscar Rivers Jr.; vocalist Ann Caldwell; and trombonists Mitchell Butler of Orangeburg and Teddy Adams of Savannah.

Repertoire for the concert will feature new music by Hampton and Heath, who will conduct their compositions. Other new music will include "437 Race Street," a big band composition by Morant, "Brother Blake," a 2005 CJI-commissioned work by Quentin Baxter, and "Step Lightly," composed by Grammy-winning producer Bob Belden, a former resident of Goose Creek.

Other repertoire will include jazz standards popularized by Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Erskine Hawkins and Cab Calloway, and those that have been composed, arranged, and performed by South Carolinians' Gillespie, Etta James ("At Last"), Johnson ("Since I Fell for You"), Livingston ("I'm Through With Love"), Julian Dash ("Tuxedo Junction") and Freddie Green ("Corner Pocket").

Charleston's Songwriter and Arranger: Fud Livingston, June 6, 6-8 p.m. at the Riviera Theatre at Charleston Place (225 King St.), $20 plus $1 surcharge. This is a tribute to Livingston (1906-57), a little known but important arranger. Brad Kay, Los Angeles-based career pianist, will talk about his role in compiling Livingston's family and musical history. Tecklenburg will discuss his experiences researching Livingston's career. Rare family and career images from CJI's Joseph "Fud" Livingston Collection also will be featured.

Tickets

Visit www.charlestonjazz.net or www.piccolospoleto.com; call 843-724-7295.

Jack McCray, author of "Charleston Jazz," can be reached at jackjmccray@aol.com.