Mingus Big Band
50th Anniversary Performances: Ah Um and Blues & Roots

Friday, January 16, 2009
8:00 pm
Loeb Playhouse
Jazz Set series

The Purdue Jazz Festival kicks off with the ebullient spirit of Charles Mingus. Paying tribute to one of the most important figures in twentieth-century American music, the 14-member Mingus Big Band will celebrate the 50th anniversary of two legendary Mingus albums, Mingus Ah Um and Blues & Roots. Bold and boisterous, these albums reveal Mingus as the virtuoso bass player, accomplished pianist, bandleader, and composer who infused the rather conventional big band sound of the 1950s and 60s with avant-garde techniques, idiosyncratic rhythms, and a disarming sense of humor. Keeping his music alive in a weekly set at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York City, the Mingus Big Band features a roster of New York’s best musicians who impart an irrepressible sense of joy in Mingus’s already spirited music. Back by popular demand, the Big Band sold out their 1999 engagement at Purdue, so act quickly or you’ll miss out!


This performance will be the opening concert of the Purdue Jazz Festival and serves as Convocations’ annual contribution to the Purdue University Bands event, which brings over 2,000 middle- and high-school students to campus for clinics and concerts with noted jazz artists and clinicians. Details at www.purdue.edu/bands.


Preview

Tickets

  Single Pick 5 Series Group
General public $30 $26 * $25
Student/
child		 $22 $19 * $18
Senior citizen $30 $25 * $25

*See order form for Jazz Set series pricing, which depends on the seating zone chosen for Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

  • Senior citizen: 62+, Purdue retiree
  • Student/child: Purdue/Ivy Tech Lafayette student, child <19
  • Pick 5: tickets for five or more separate shows
  • Series: three performances in
    Jazz Set
  • Group: groups of 10 or more

Purchase information

Experience +

Playing with jazz tradition: Don Seybold, jazz expert and former Associate Director of Convocations, will illuminate Charles Mingus’s legacy, the celebrated albums, and the band’s approach to propelling his music into the future.
Friday / January 16, 2009 / 7 pm / Stewart Center, room 320

Autograph session with the artists.
Friday / January 16, 2009 / post-performance / Stewart Center West Lobby