Jazz Ensemble Swing Concert

The era of Big Band music comes to life again when the Baylor University Jazz Ensemble presents the fifteenth-annual edition of “A Moonlight Serenade.” This exhilarating swing concert, on Thursday, September 9, at 7:30 p.m. in Jones Concert Hall, is a re-creation of what folks in the 1940s heard on radios, at nightclubs, on 78-rpm records, and in the hotel ballrooms of their day. The 21-member Jazz Ensemble is led by Alex Parker, Senior Lecturer in Jazz Studies and Director of the Wayne Fisher Jazz Program at Baylor University.
The Jazz Ensemble will play in the styles of such illustrious bands as Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Ray Noble, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Thad Jones, and Woody Herman.
Faculty guest artists for this year’s Swing Concert include saxophonist Michael Jacobson, trumpeters Wiff Rudd and Mark Schubert, bassist Sandor Ostlund, drummer Edward Taylor, and tubist and pianist Kent Eshelman. The group’s student vocalist, Jamie West (a senior from Waco) will sing the Sammy Cahn/Jimmy Van Heusen standard, “Come Fly with Me,” in the style of Frank Sinatra. Among the Jazz Ensemble’s members are three Wayne Fisher Jazz Scholars: trumpeter Joel Reaves of McKinney, trombonist Dawson Ward of Rockwall, and drummer Collin Caldwell of McKinney.
This Jazz Ensemble Swing Concert is free of charge and open to the public. It is also available for livestreaming at baylor.edu/music/live.