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6:30 PM • Every Friday, September 2023 • Dunn Meadow - IU Bloomington • FREE

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The B-Town Bearcats

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The B-Town Bearcats is a band comprised of some of the best practitioners of traditional jazz in Central Indiana. The Bearcats mission is to perform the music of the Golden Age of jazz, 1900-1940, and to render it in an authentic and entertaining fashion. The band's repertoire is selected from the works of Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke, and many others. The instrumentation is the traditional Dixieland format: trumpet, trombone, clarinet, tuba, banjo, piano, vocalist and drums. Please join the B-Town Bearcats as they play the music that formed the backbone of America’s long and distinctive legacy of that music called jazz.

Soul Proprietors (with special guest Greg Ward)

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Soul Proprietors is Abhik Mazumder (piano), Alex Hoberty (bass), and Francis Bassett-Dilley (drums). The band specializes in old-school, blues-oriented jazz trio music in the vein of Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, Monty Alexander and others.

Greg Ward is assistant professor of music in jazz studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. A saxophonist and composer born in Peoria, Illinois, Ward has performed and recorded with a varied group of artists, such as Prefuse 73, Lupe Fiasco, Tortoise, William Parker, Makaya McCraven, Linda Oh, and Mike Reed. As a bandleader, Ward has produced four recordings, including Fitted Shards: South Side Story, Phonic Juggernaut, Touch My Beloved’s Thought, and Rogue Parade: Stomping Off From Greenwood.

As a composer, he has received commissions from the Jazz Gallery in NYC, Chicago Jazz Institute, City of Chicago’s Made in Chicago: World Class Jazz Series, and the Peoria Ballet Company. He was awarded the New Music USA Van Lier Fellowship in 2012 and a DCASE IAP grant in 2017. Ward maintains an active international touring schedule with various ensembles.

Descarga Five

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Descarga Five is an instrumental quintet comprised of IU students and faculty playing high-energy salsa and Latin jazz favorites. With Jamaal Baptiste on piano, Natalie Boeyink on bass, Ana Nelson on saxophone, and Joe Galvin on percussion they are sure to get you up on your feet and dancing.

Sophie Faught

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Tenor saxophonist Sophie Faught is an improviser, composer, bandleader, and teacher. Raised up by some of Indiana’s great jazz musicians and educators – David Baker, Harry Miedema, Brent Walarab, and Claude Sifferlen – Sophie speaks the jazz language with creativity, wit, passion, depth, and soul. Sophie’s music is mindful of tradition, without being held captive by it.

Sophie has performed in venues across the country and world, including Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City and the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She has headlined at the nationally recognized Portland Jazz Festival, leading her own group in original compositions and jazz standards. She has toured as a member of the Nicholas Payton Jazz Quintet, and has also appeared with Jimmy Heath, Slide Hampton, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Terrell Stafford, and Dick Oates. She currently leads her own jazz trio and performs periodically in Bloomington and Indianapolis.

Evan Taylor

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Throughout his bright career, Evan Taylor has supported artists such as Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, Gloria Estefan, Delfeayo Marsalis & The Uptown Jazz Orchestra, Eric Darius, Nicole Henry, Kris Johnson Big Band, Justin Lee Schultz and others across North America. Taylor frequently collaborates with industry producers to develop music for Netflix, HGTV, BET, and other television programs, and was signed to Warner Chappell Music as a recording artist in 2018. Taylor served one year in Miami, FL as the Jazz Trumpet Professor at Broward College. Currently, Taylor resides in Bloomington, IN. He is employed by the African American Arts Institute as an Assistant Instructor and Arranger for the Indiana University Soul Revue, while frequently performing and recording abroad.

Swing in September is a co-production of WFIU Public Radio
and
the Department of Jazz Studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music

WFIU Public Radio
Jacobs School of Music

Swing in September is presented by:

Greene and Schultz
IU Credit Union Investment Services
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