Jazz Festival to feature trumpet legend Bobby Shew

02/06/2014 11:17 AM

The Ninth Annual Bradley University Jazz Festival will take place on Tuesday, February 25, in the Michel Student Center, located at 915 N. Elmwood. 

Fourteen high school bands, guest artist Bobby Shew, and clinicians Edgar Crockett, Nikki Malley, and Mike Stryker will be featured. 

Bobby Shew began playing the guitar at the age of eight and switched to the trumpet at ten. By the time he was thirteen he was playing at local dances with a number of bands and by fifteen had put together his own group to play at dances, occasional concerts and in jazz coffee houses. He spent most of his high school days playing as many as six nights a week in a dinner club, giving him an early start to his professional career. His studio work has included TV shows like Hawaii 5-O, Streets Of San Francisco, Bob Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore, Midnight Specials, Don Kirschner Rock Concert, Happy Days, Laverne And Shirley, and Eight Is Enough. His work on soundtracks includes Grease I and II, Rocky I and II, Six-Pack, The Muppet Movie, The Drivers, and Taxi. In addition to a busy performing and private teaching schedule, Shew conducts clinics and master classes at high schools and college campuses all over the world. He continues to tour internationally and to produce and record excellent music.

The visiting high school bands will perform throughout the day, starting at 8 a.m. Those performances are open to the public.

The evening concert will feature the Bradley Jazz Lab Band and Jazz Ensemble with Shew at 7:30 p.m. in the Michel Student Center ballroom. Tickets for the evening concert are $10 for the general public and $5 for students. For more information, call the Bradley Cultural Events Box Office at 677-2650.

The Bradley Jazz Ensemble, under the leadership of Dr. Todd Kelly, is the most visible ensemble in the Bradley Jazz program. They have performed at the Illinois Collegiate Jazz Festival and the Elmhurst College Jazz Festival, as well as three European tours. They have brought many world renowned jazz clinicians and soloists to the Bradley campus, including Mike Lee, The Mike Vax Big Band, Matt   Wilson, Rachael Lee, Allen Vizzutti, Ron Jones, Tom Garling, Byron Stripling, Chris Vadala, the Jeff Hamilton Trio, Wayne Bergeron, Denis DiBlasio, Kathy Kosins, Michael Davis, Allen Vizzutti, and Wycliffe Gordon. 

The Bradley Jazz Festival is sponsored by Yamaha of America.