ASU Tribe Jazz Band performs works of Buddy Collette on Oct. 16

Oct. 2, 2007 -- On Tuesday, Oct. 16, the Arkansas State University Tribe Jazz Band will perform a concert of the compositions of Buddy Collette at 7:30 p.m., Riceland Hall, Fowler Center. Fowler Center is located at 201 Olympic Drive in Jonesboro. Special guests for the concert will be John Stephens, a multiple reed performer who has arranged the music of Collette and who will perform with the Tribe, and Buddy Collette himself. The concert is free and open to the public.

Artist and activist Buddy Collette has been at the forefront of changes in the American music industry for more than six generations and has performed with innumerable legendary artists of American music, including Charles Mingus, Ella Fitzgerald, Eric Dolphy, and Frank Sinatra. Considered the Jackie Robinson of music because of his role in helping to desegregate Los Angeles studio musicians’ unions, Collette’s social importance is eclipsed only by his musical accomplishments.

The ASU Jazz band will be playing a number of Collette’s original compositions, many of which were recorded on the eponymously titled CD, “The Buddy Collette Big Band-- Live at El Camino College,” with an all-star group of California musicians. Collette’s original compositions are easy to listen to as they take the swing tradition into the future. Compositions such as “Magali” and “Blues in Torrence” show Collette’s ability to modulate a standard jazz chord structure and make it sound freshly minted. The band will also perform a number of Collette’s high energy big band arrangements. In addition to several of Collette’s originals, the band will also perform John Stephens’s arrangements of Benny Carter’s “Only Trust Your Heart,” and the classic jazz standard “Witchcraft.”  

The ASU Tribe Jazz Band members are: alto saxophones, Claire Richardson of Jonesboro and Michael Newson of Memphis; tenor saxophones, Daniel Rickman and Allen Adcock, both of Jonesboro; baritone saxophone, Adam Leslie of Jonesboro; trombones, Blake Howerton of Paragould, Matt Strawbridge, Kade Holliday, and Treavor Mitchell, all of Jonesboro; trumpets, Grant Harbison of Jonesboro, Joseph Curtis of Trumann, Antonio Sparks of Jonesboro, and Lara Spain of Wynne; vibes and piano, Janet Rooney of Trumann; piano, Mauricio Dixon of Wynne; guitar, Jay Shepherd of Paragould; bass, Kevin Cremeens of Jonesboro; drums, Perry Harper of Paragould.

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