music
Martin Altstaedten / KANSAN
The vocal ensemble KU Jazz Singers rehearses for the 17th annual KU Jazz Festival. The festival will be held at the Lied Center at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday.
Photo courtesy of Borman Entertainment The fusion jazz group Yellowjackets will perform Saturday night.
Photo courtesy of Sutton Artists Corp.
Pianist and composer Dave
Brubec will perform Friday
night.
KU CELEBRATES JAZZ!
With headliners Dave Brubeck and Yellowjackets, this weekend's 17th Annual Jazz Festival is the biggest ever.
By Cathleen Slechta Kansan staff writer
In the words of Lindsey Williams, attending this year's KIJ-lazz Festival is "a chance of a lifetime."
the mugnight of the festival is Friday night's performance by Dave Brubeck, said Williams, a Winfield senior and member of the KU Jazz Singers. Williams also is a trombone player for the KU Jazz Ensemble. ("Brubeck) is incredible. He's a living legend in the jazz world. He's been playing for over 30 years, and that will create a cool draw in the audience. There will be people there that grew up with him, and then people our age can listen to him and learn what jazz really is."
Pianist and composer Dave Brubeck and the fusion jazz group Yellowjackets are the headliners for the 17th annual KU Jazz Festival. The festival will be held at the Lied Center at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday, March 4 and 5.
rniay night's performance will feature "An Evening with Dave Brubeck," the KU Jazz Singers and KU Jazz Combo I. Saturday, the concert will include performances by Yellowjackets, the Wichita State University Jazz Arts I and the KU Jazz Ensemble I with special guest John Fedchock on trombone.
More than 50 high school and college jazz bands, combos, and choirs also will perform at the Lied Center from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day of the festival. The groups then will attend instructional sessions with guest clinicians.
Dan Galley, director of the University's jazz studies program and coordinator of the event, said that moving the jazz festival to the Lied Center provided more space to accommodate more bands and choirs.
"It's by far the largest festival yet," Galley said. "The number of groups participating is double what it was last year."
Dick Wright, associate professor of music history and master of ceremonies for the festival, said it offered more than just the opportunity to hear and play jazz music.
"The experience is very valuable for the college and high school groups," said Wright. "They get to play for
Jazz up your weekend
stop by the Lied Center and enjoy performances by participants in the 17th annual KU Jazz Festival.
Friday, March 4
8 a.m.-5 p.m.
Individual half-hour performances by high school and college jazz bands and vocal jazz choirs on the Lied Center "main stage" and in the Dance Studio. Open to the public.
Open to the public.
7:30 p.m. - "An Evening with Dave Brubeck," featuring the award-winning jazz pioneer and his quartet, as well as the KL Jazz Singers and JazzCombo L.
Tickets: $15 and $13 for public and $12 and $10 for students and senior citizens.
Saturday, March 5
8 a.m.-5 p.m.
Individual half-hour performances by high school and college jazz bands and vocal jazz choirs on the Lied Center "main stage" and in the Dance Studio. Open to the public.
7:30 p.m. - Fusion group "Yellowjackets," with the Wichita State University Jazz Arts I and the KU Jazz Ensemble I with guest trombonist John Fedchock.
Tickets: $12 and $10 for public and $9 and $7 for students and senior citizens.
and receive constructive criticism from great clinicians, work around talented artists, and hear great music. I think it's especially good for young players from small towns. And of course, they get to see our beautiful campus and new Lied Center."
Gailey said that having the festival at the Lied Center allowed the KU Jazz Festival to book bigger name stars for each night's performance.
"With 2,000 seats to sell, we knew we could book big name acts," he said. "We wanted a classical jazz artist of historical importance and agreed unanimously the"
Dave Brubeck was our first choice. He has the name recognition we want and crosses all boundaries of age and taste."
The second night of the festival will feature a more contemporary act.
"Yellowjackets have great appeal for a faster and younger audience," Galley said. "The group is heavily based in improvisation and borrows elements from rock music."
Chelle Venable, Kansas City, Mo., junior and soprano for the KUJazz Singers, said the quality of this year's performers spoke well for KUJ's jazz department.
"I think that the festival and its guests are a representation of how far the jazz department has come in the last four years under Dan Gailey," Venable said. "It's really exciting for the students because we get to perform for the guest artists, and they get to see what the young people are doing with jazz. I try to talk and listen to the guests as much as I can. There's so much you can learn from them if you just act like a sponge and take in everything they say."
Wright agreed that the University's jazz program was flourishing.
"Over the past two or three years, KU's jazz program has made leaps and bounds," he said. "It's more nationally known now. With this festival, we really stepped up to a new level. It should be outstanding. It's great to have big names at the festival, but it also gives us a chance to showcase our own groups here at KU."
Williams said that the KU jazz groups had enjoyed support from the University and Lawrence at all of their performances and that he was hopeful that this year's jazz festival would draw a large audience.
"I'm looking forward to playing for a packed house," Williams said. "Hopefully we'll help add to a really cool concert line-up."
Reserved seat tickets for the nightly concert are available through the KU box offices; Murphy Hall, 864-3982, and Lied Center, 864-ARTS. KU student tickets are available at the SUA office in the Kansas Union.
grammys
Rock 'n' roll marketplace in state of flux, experts say
By David Bauder Associated Press Writers
The year's hottest concert rumor featured the Beatles, who haven't performed in public for 25 years. Two of this summer's biggest tours will star the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd. And there's persistent talk of a Woodstock reunion.
It's almost enough to make the traditionally staid Grammys seem hip.
The ceremony comes during a time of unease for popular music. There's no shortage of talented new artists, but the way the industry works has many experts worried that few musicians of today will be remembered in the same way as rock's first generation.
The music industry gathers in New York City tonight for the 36th annual Grammy Awards. Whitney Houston, Billy Joel, Sting and Neil Young are the best bets to be big winners.
Just as rock 'n' roll has become old enough to acquire a real sense of history, it's in danger of collapsing under the weight of it.
Michael Jackson's career is in tatters, although sister Janet has picked up the slack somewhat. The stars of Pearl Jam and Nirvana, Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain, seem singularly uncomfortable with the burdens of fame. Madonna's recent projects flopped. U2 is poised for an extended vacation. Prince even ditched his name.
Restrictive radio formats, a preoccupation with the past and a lack of patience for building careers are all hurdles for musicians who hope to stay around for awhile.
"I think there are artists out there who have the potential for possessing staying power, but I don't know that the marketplace is encouraging that," said producer Don Was, best known for steering Bonnie Raitt to multiplatinum status.
Billboard's top albums chart reflects the current state of flux. John Michael Montgomery, Toni Braxton and Alice in Chains have all topped the chart during the last month.
Who is leading the way in today's music world?
"People who were listening to Herman's Hermits were also listening to the Byrds and were also listening to Otis Redding," he said. "That doesn't happen much anymore."
If anything, radio station formats are getting tighter and are splintering off in new directions. One trendy new format: punk oldies, for fans nostalgic about alternative rock of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Each of those artists has a following, but chances are the fans of one know nothing about the other two.
It was only five years ago when Sony Music directed Irwin and two others to start exploring the corporation's huge back catalog of music. Now Sony Legacy is one of the company's most active outlets, with hundreds of projects in the pipeline, he said.
Iwain also has his own label, Sundazed, which specializes in
Bob Irwin, an archivist who specializes in re-issuing old music on CDs, remembers when radio stations used to open doors to him.
See GRAMMYS, Page 8.
safety
Spring Break safety starts in the home
By Kevin Hoffmann Kansan staff writer
Kansan staff writer
Students who plan on flocking to the Florida beaches, the Colorado slopes or the Vegas slot machines over Spring Break should take some precautions to make sure they don't find an unpleasant surprise when they return from their vacations.
Because students often return from Spring Break to find that their property or automobiles have been broken into, certain safety tips are important to remember.
Ruth Nye, manager of Adventure Travel, 544 Columbia Drive, said she hoped students remembered that security was an important way to make sure vacations remain enjoyable.
"The main thing is that they lock everything up and secure everything before they leave," Nye said.
Sgt. Rose Rozmirae of the KU police department said the number of theft reports tended to rise during Spring Break.
"When the students come back the week following the break, we have a tendency to have an increase in the number of calls we receive," Rozmiarek said.
10 lessen the possibility of having property stolen, students leaving town for vacation should be aware of the following safety tins:
Make sure all doors and windows are locked.
Make sure automobiles are locked and any valuable items are placed in the trunk.
Do not leave valuable items out in the open inside residences.
Have someone check on property and collect newspapers and mail.
Leave a light turned on inside the residence.
Notify a trusted person of your itinerary and how to reach you in case of emergency.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MARCH 1,1994
PAGE 7
People and places at the University of Kansas.
LEAD STORY
LAST DAYS OF THE PLANET
The epicenter of the January California earthquake is five miles from the United States' largest egg farm, where hens had produced their usual 1 million eggs in the hours before the quake hit. The damage to the farm was a snapped water line, toppled empty egg pallets, and a total of one broken egg. Said manager Robert Wagner to his employees, "We had a 6.6 earthquake that broke less eggs than you guys do when we're working."
- in a report in a recent issue of *Audubon* magazine, Ursula Garza de Garza of the border town of Matamoros, Mexico, mentioned that her dogs no longer had a flea problem. "We grab the dogs and stick them in the canal (that connects several Matamoros chemical companies), and the fleas are gone," she said. "All the hair falls off, too, but gradually it comes back."
- The Washington Times, citing a Federal Protective Service report, revealed in May that staff and volunteers of the 1993 Clinton inaugural had stolen $154,000 worth of electronic equipment used for the festivities.
- In January, an investigation by a British network TV news program revealed that the late Ferdinand Marcos' stashed-away gold fortune totaled 1,200 tons—the equivalent of 15 percent of the contents of Fort Knox and about 1 percent of all the gold ever mined in the world.
- A London veterinarian said in January that Ellen Wilson's pet bird Peter had died of lung cancer caused by Wilson's smoking. Wilson disputed the diagnosis, claiming that her previous bird had lasted 12 years despite her smoking and that Peter had only begun to cough during his last days.
- To protect its town Christmas tree from thieves and vandals this season, the city of Moncton, New Brunswick, enclosed its 20-foot-high tree inside a 10-foot-high chain-link pen for the duration of the holidays.
- According to the newspaper feature "Earth Week," Australia has recently employed 80 hens as sentinels so authorities will know when an expected invasion of mosquitoes has started, and Russia has recently employed rats at the border to munch on samples of Chinese potatoes to check their edibility.
- In January, five prison guards at the Boise, Idaho, Maximum Security Institution were accused of taunting death row inmates by playing a 1971 Neil Young song "The Needle and the Damage Done" during a scheduled execution by injection.
- The organization Bat Conservation International proposed recently that the former Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire convert 15 vacant nuclear missile bunkers into bat caves. The bunkers apparently have just the proper temperature, humidity and air circulation to suit bats.
See WEIRD, Page 8.