PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 24, No. 23, June 16, 2005

brief notes

School of Music
Summer jazz festival begins June 16

Click photo to enlarge Photo by John Abbott Jazzfest Jon Faddis returns as festival headliner to the Summer Jazz Festival at Illinois for the third year.

Jazz musicians at the UI combine forces with guest artists June 16 through 19 during the 2005 Summer Jazz Festival at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

The festival takes place in Krannert Center’s Tryon Festival, with a final performance on June 19 at the Allerton Conference Center near Monticello. Krannert Center programs begin at 7:30 p.m.; ticket information is available at 333-1580 or www.krannertcenter.com/tickets. The Allerton event, which begins at 5 p.m., includes cocktails and dinner. For reservations, or for more information, call the Allerton Conference Center, 333-3287 or 762-7011.

Returning for the third year as festival headliner – performing all four nights – will be guest artist Jon Faddis. The trumpeter, who regards Dizzy Gillespie as a mentor and major source of musical inspiration, has performed and recorded with Gillespie, Eubie Blake, Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus. He also has played on recordings by Frank Sinatra, Billy Joel, the Rolling Stones and on the soundtracks of Clint Eastwood’s films “Bird” and "The Gauntlet.”

Kicking off the festival June 16 is “A Tribute to Thelonious Monk: Thelonious Monk at Town Hall,” featuring an acoustic jazz ensemble of 10 players. In addition to Faddis, featured band members will include Toby Curtright, a UI doctoral student in jazz performance, who will play bass on all festival programs; Joel Spencer, a Chicago-based jazz drummer; and trombonist Jim Pugh, who will join the music faculty at Illinois this fall. The featured arrangements were first performed in New York City’s Town Hall in 1959 and will be re-created for the first time at Illinois. Introductory comments will be provided by UI musicologist Gabriel Solis, an authority on Monk’s life and music.

On June 17, performers will include Pugh; jazz studies director Chip McNeill, saxophone; Dana Hall, drums; and Mark Flugge and Joan Hickey, piano.

The June 18 program will be a re-creation of the 1924 Paul Whiteman Aeolian Hall Concert, featuring Maurice Peress conducting a 24-piece band with UI music professor Ian Hobson, piano. Spencer will play on drums, along with John Dee, on hecklephone, a rarely heard instrument related to the oboe.

I space exhibition
Exhibition focuses on body-image issues
Issues related to gay male body image will be explored in a new exhibition on view through July 9 at I space, the Chicago gallery of the UI.

“Skin Deep,” which features prints, mixed media assemblages and other work by Bruce Eves, Karl Moehl, Marcy Sperry and Billy Stroud, “only scratches the surface yet explores many issues, images and facets of the gay male body image through art,” according to Stroud, a Bloomington, Ill.-based artist, art educator and UI alumnus who organized the show.

Eves, an artist who lives in Toronto, is a co-founder of the International Gay History Archive, now housed in the Rare Books and Manuscripts division of the New York Public Library. Mohl is an artist, writer and emeritus professor at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. Sperry is a Chicago-based art educator involved in youth-based HIV/AIDS awareness, and co-instructor for a collaborative Web project at Street-Level Youth Media.

I space gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Busey Woods
BioBlitz to take place June 24-25
Scientists from several UI departments will participate in a BioBlitz at Busey Woods on June 24-25. The event, designed as part scientific endeavor, part festival and part educational event, will see how many species scientists and volunteers can count in a 24-hour biological survey of the 59-acre woodland area.

The event is sponsored by the Urbana Park District and is getting assistance from many community organizations and businesses as well as the UI Committee on Natural Areas and the UI departments of animal biology, entomology, geology, plant biology, and natural resources and environmental sciences.

The public is invited to observe the scientists’ activities and to interact with them during the event. Other activities are planned including hikes and presentations, which are free but require pre-registration by calling 384-4062. All events and activities will take place at the Anita Purves Nature Center, 1505 N. Broadway, Urbana, and in adjacent Busey Woods.

The event kicks off at noon on June 24 with a ribbon cutting for the new Busey Woods Boardwalk, a 1/3-mile wooden path with interpretive signs that will make the area more accessible. A complete event schedule is online at www.urbanaparks.org or call 384-4062.

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