February is still months away, but tickets for the 45th annual Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival are now available. Series tickets, which include admission to all eight headline acts and start at $95, went on sale Friday for Jazz Fest 2012.
For University of Idaho and Washington State University students, less expensive advance tickets go on sale Nov. 18, and cost $7 for Wednesday night, $9 for Thursday night and $20 for outer stand seating at Friday and Saturday night’s events in the Kibbie Dome.
“We’ve got a really strong lineup this year,” said James Brownson, Jazz Fest director of development and marketing. “We have our main stage performances, which I think a lot of people know about that, and then we have workshops and clinics all day long as well, and most of those are free and open to the public.”
Prodigy clarinetist and nine-time Grammy winner Paquito D’Rivera has garnered wide acclaim in both the classical and jazz idioms, Brownson said. He will be paired with Israeli-born clarinetist Anat Cohen, and both will be augmented by the All-star Quartet and the Lionel Hampton School of Music Big Band. The performance opens at 8 p.m. Wednesday night in the SUB Ballroom.
“The theme for the festival this year is ‘Mentors and Masters: Partners Shape Tomorrow,'” Brownson said, “And so Paquito is a long-time, well established player, and we’ve paired him with a younger player, another clarinetist and saxophonist, Anat Cohen, who’s Israeli-born but is now based in New York City, and she’s also very fluent in the Latin styles.”
Thursday night features three groups that will perform two sets at staggered times, so Jazz Fest participants can attend each.
“Thursday night we’ll be in three smaller venues on campus,” Brownson said. “It’s an opportunity for people to hear these artists in a smaller, more intimate performance setting.”
On Friday, the Kibbie dome will be filled with the gospel sounds of the Blind Boys of Alabama, a group that was established in 1939 at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind. Brownson said their performance should draw a large, diverse crowd.
Veteran Hammond B-3 organist Ike Stubblefield and His Trio also perform Friday. Stubblefield gained notoriety as a studio musician for the Motown studio.
“He does a rocking jazz solo show,” said Steven Remington, Jazz Fess executive director, who said he is looking forward to this act the most.
The nationally famous Lionel Hampton Youth Jazz Orchestra, augmented by regional school and university players selected in a closed audition will close out the festival Saturday night.
Brownson said Lionel Hampton attended every year until his death, and helped bring notable jazz performers to UI during the event’s early years.
Putting on a festival with more than 6,000 expected attendees and educational workshops is no small task, Remington said. He said one of the challenges is the educational aspect of the festival, which includes interacting with thousands of students. Brownson said practically every event center and church in town is used for workshops.
“When they come here it’s an immersive jazz environment,” Remington said.
He said students don’t just learn their instruments and music skills, but the cultural impact and history of this “uniquely American art form,” which began as the expressive music of a repressed class and has become embedded in American culture.