Stars light up Carolina Jazz Festival

Trombonist Slide Hampton, trumpeter Scott Wendholt and bassist Charlie Haden will be the maestros for this year's Carolina Jazz Festival. Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés opened the 25th annual festival on Feb. 12, heralding a smorgasbord of shows Feb. 22 and 23 and Feb. 26 - March 1.

Highlights will include an all-day festival of high school bands, live "Jazz Under the Stars" in the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center, master classes with the pros and free late-night jams by festival musicians in local night spots.

Festival director James Ketch, music department chair and jazz studies director, said he is both gratified and impressed by the talent featured in this year's festival.

"Their instruction, demonstrations and performances will be a tremendous boon to our student jazz musicians, and their performances will lift the spirits of everyone in attendance," he said. "We're fortunate to have artists of such outstanding skill and experience coming to Carolina."

Hampton, a performer, composer, arranger and teacher for more than 30 years, is musical adviser to the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band. He was musical director of Dizzy Gillespie's Grammy Award-winning United Nation Orchestra in 1989, and he won the 1998 Grammy for Best Jazz Arrangement with a Vocalist.

Wendholt has recorded and worked with numerous jazz stars and appears on more than 40 compact discs, including five of his own as a bandleader. Bands in which he has played include The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra and the Carnegie Hall Big Band.Haden's Los Angeles-based Quartet West formed in 1986 and has five albums on the Verve label, including Grammy-nominated "Haunted Heart" (1991), "Always Say Goodbye" (1994) and "Now Is the Hour" (1996).

"We've developed a sound that has come from playing together for a long time," Haden has said. "Today, many CDs are recorded by thrown-together all-star bands whose personnel is always changing, and who never perform together long enough to develop their own sound. We've become very close so that our music is all about inspiration."

Haden has recorded with notables including John Coltrane, Pat Methany and Hank Jones; he has played live with artists including singer Rickie Lee Jones. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Grammies and four grants for composition from the National Endowment for the Arts. He founded the jazz studies department at the California Institute of the Arts.

Some festival events are free; tickets for others are on sale from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays at the Carolina Union Box Office in the Frank Porter Graham Student Union.

For more information, call 962-1449, 962-1039.or see www.artscarolina.org or www.performingartsseries.unc.edu

Inspired Jazz •   Feb. 22 Phi Mu Alpha High School Jazz Festival; Hill Hall Auditorium, Person Recital Hall; 8:15 a.m. to 6 p.m. Free. •   Feb. 23 Jazz Under the Stars III; Star Theatre, Morehead Planetarium and Science Center; 3 p.m. Free for children and for students with IDs, $5 for others. •   Feb. 26 Festival Sampler; Hill Hall Auditorium; 4 p.m. Free. •   Feb. 27 10th Anniversary North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra Big Band Bash!; Hill Hall Auditorium; 8 p.m. $5 for students and children, $10 for others. •   Feb. 28 Fred and Gail Fearing Jazz Series, UNC Jazz Combos with festival artists-in-residence Slide Hampton on trumpet and Scott Wendholt on trumpet; 107 Hill Hall; 4 p.m. Free. •   Feb. 28 Charlie Haden and Quartet West; Hill Hall Auditorium; 8 p.m. $20 for students, $35 for others. •   March 1 UNC Jazz Band with festival artists-in-residence Slide Hampton on trumpet and Scott Wendholt on trumpet; Hill Hall Auditorium; 8 p.m. Free for students with IDs, $5 for others.