April 24, 2014
Jazz concert to feature pianist Keith Javors
Southern Illinois University Carbondale welcomes jazz pianist Keith Javors as a guest musician in a concert featuring the SIU Jazz Combo and the New Arts Jazztet.
The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 25, in Altgeld Hall, Room 112. Admission is free.
Javors, who grew up in De Soto, is a successful jazz pianist, composer, producer, educator, and the president and CEO of Inarhyme Records, LLC based in Philadelphia. He's performed at top festivals and venues worldwide and worked with such jazz artists as Dave Brubeck, Dave Holland, Kenny Garrett, and Clark Terry.
The SIU Jazz Combo will open the concert. A part of the jazz studies curriculum at SIU, Jazz Combos is a “laboratory” class in which students develop their performance and improvisation skills within the jazz idiom. Students in the ensemble are: Leif Sebby, a music performance major from Plainfield on alto saxophone; Allen Adcock, a music performance graduate student from Bono, Ark., on tenor saxophone; Kenny Grundy, a music business major from Tamms on piano; Kevin Drake, a radio-television production major from Genoa on bass, and Tommy Embrich, a music performance major from Collinsville on drums. They will perform Julian “Cannonball” Adderley’s “Sack of Woe,” Wes Montgomery’s “Full House,” and two other selections.
The concert program will conclude with Javors and the New Arts Jazztet. The group will perform three of Javors’ compositions: “Inwardly,” “The Meeting,” and “Rhyme and Reason.” They will also play works by SIU composers: “When the Walls Crumble,” by Dick Kelley, assistant professor of saxophone and director of the jazz studies program; “Count Wut,” by Isaac Lausell, lecturer in guitar; and “Hit ‘Em Again,” by retiring professor Frank Stemper, composer in residence at SIU.
The New Arts Jazztet lineup includes: founding member Bob Allison on trumpet; Phil Brown, bass; Ron Coulter, drums; Dick Kelley, reeds; Isaac Lausell, guitar, and Mel Goot, on vibraphone and auxiliary percussion for this concert.