Summer Solstice Jazz Festival to light up East Lansing
Artistic director Rodney Whitaker always approaches planning for the annual Summer Solstice Jazz Festival with a clear idea. He likes to mix local talent with young upcoming stars from New York, Chicago or elsewhere.
Over its 23-year history that plan has resulted is a wide variety jazz and we have heard many great up and comers, like heard bassist and singer Esperanza Spaulding, trumpet player Bria Skonberg and saxophonist Grace Kelly before they were internationally known.
This year, Whitaker is taking a different approach.
“I thought that so many of our jazz faculty at Michigan State University play with musicians from all over the country, why don’t we bring those folks in so they can all play together?”
The Festival runs June 21 and June 22 in downtown East Lansing on Albert Street, between Bailey and Charles.
One of the headliners will be an MSU trumpet prof, Etienne Charles, who has developed a huge international career in the eight years that he’s been at Michigan State. For the release of a new album, “Carnival, The Music of a People” The New York Times sent a writer to East Lansing for a feature story.
Originally from Trinidad, Charles received his master’s degree from Julliard and undergrad from Florida State before he came to Michigan State. “I was younger than many of most of the graduate students when I first came here.”
Speaking with Charles on the telephone is a fun experience. His speech has the soft lilt rhythms of the Caribbean along with a youthful excitement of living the life of his dreams (“Shh. Don’t tell anybody.”) – teaching, traveling the world, and playing jazz with his cherished colleagues. He even claims to love living in East Lansing.
“Playing professionally outside of MSU to build a career, is part of my job. I have to maintain a significant profile as a performer.”
And he’s done that. He just became a member of the jazz’s best all-star band, the SFJAZZ Collective, has recorded seven CDs and has toured through Europe, South America, California, Africa, Jakarta, and Aspen.
Charles said, “We sort of built a conga line all over the world. We groove a lot. But when Rodney asked me to put my group together for the festival, I realized that we haven ‘t played in East Lansing for a long time and that would great.”
The jazz trumpeter loves to connect with people through his music. “I love music for what it does for me and what it does for people. I love to see people squirming in their chairs because they just can’t stop moving to the music. They’ve got to dance.”
Also appearing is Randy Gelispie, drummer, and his Organ Ensemble. Gelispie, 84, has had one of the most remarkable careers where he has toured the country with all of the jazz greats for 30 years, but then his wife became sick and he came to Lansing and worked at the General Motors plant.
On the road Gelispie played every kind of music you can imagine and now he teaches that to his students at MSU. “In those 30 years I had to play every kind of style. I just listened to the players like mad and whatever they wanted to do; I would go that way.”
On a tour, Saxophonist Cannonball Adderley said, “Boy, you sure can swing.”
“And that’s the secret of being a good drummer,” says Gelispie. “You have to swing. I always tell my young students. ‘You’ve got to make it swing.’”
Gelispie loves the electric organ, the Hammond B3, made famous in the ‘50s and ‘60s by Jimmy Smith. For the group he’s assembling for the Festival, he is bringing in Bill Heid, a legendary keyboard man. With him will be MSU profs Michael Dease on trombone, Diego Rivera on saxophone and guitarist Fareed Haque from Chicago.
Although Gelispie loves natural acoustic music, he doesn’t shy away from electric organ and guitar. “I listen to the line, the music and the feeling of the music. I just love it all.”
Has he slowed down at age 84? An indomitable Gelispie says, “Man, I can play those tempos just as fast as I ever could. I’m still going strong.”
To go
•Friday, June 21, 4-11 p.m.; Saturday, June 22, 2:30-11 p.m.
•The Founders’ Stage will be in the Bailey Parking Lot, 139 Bailey St.,; the Education Stage will be adjacent to the Albert-Division intersection.
• Friday night headliner is Jane Bunnett & Maqueque, an all-female sextet known for their Afro-Cuban jazz.
•Saturday night headliner is Straight Ahead, an all-female quartet of Grammy-nominated recording artists from Detroit.
•Other 2019 Founders’ Stage performers include the Randy Gelispie Organ Ensemble, Etienne Charles, Maureen Choi, Xavier Davis Quartet with Regina Carter and the Rodney Whitaker Sextet.
•The 2019 Education Stage performers include the Stanley Ruvinov Quartet, Jordyn Davis, Tim Blackmon & Tissa Khosla, Jeff Shoup Quartet, 496 West, JAMM, Margherita Fava Quartet, Brandon Rose, The Becoming Quintet, Max Colley and Root Doctor.
•The complete schedule of performances at eljazzfest.com/193/2019-Performer-Line-up.