Headliners, competition spark 23rd Purdue Jazz Festival

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Two jazz giants - saxophonist Jeff Coffin, a three-time Grammy Award winner with Bela Fleck & the Flecktones, and trombonist Delfaeyo Marsalis from the jazz world's legendary Marsalis family, add luster to the 2013 Purdue Jazz Festival scheduled for Thursday (Jan. 17) through Jan. 19.

Marsalis and an all-star octet will perform his own version of Duke Ellington's Shakespeare-inspired "Sweet Thunder" that he subtitles: "Duke and Shake" at the festival's first headliner concert on Jan. 18. Coffin, who now performs with the Dave Matthews Band, will be the headliner for the Jan. 19 concert with the Purdue Jazz Band. Both concerts will take place in Purdue's Loeb Playhouse.

One of the Midwest's premiere jazz competitions takes place on  Jan. 19. With more than 90 big bands and combos from 56 schools in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin competing, there'll be more jazz to the square foot on Purdue's campus that day than in the jazz mecca of New Orleans.

 "There will be plenty of great musical surprises during the festival and a fantastic array of some of the finest jazz educators and performers to offer adjudication and mini-clinics to the competing bands," says festival director M.T. "Mo" Trout.  Admission to the competition, centered around venues in the Purdue Stewart Center and Memorial Union, is free.

Student musicians, and all jazz lovers, will also have the chance to rub shoulders with performers of national renown at free clinics on Jan. 19 that are open to the public. Both Marsalis and Coffin are part of the clinic lineup.

The 23rd Jazz Festival officially kicks off on Thursday (Jan. 17), when the festival's artist in residence, trumpeter Lennie Foy, performs with jazz bands from Jefferson, Harrison, West Lafayette and McCutcheon high schools. The Purdue Jazz Band also will perform with the others at a 7 p.m. Community Showcase Concert at Lafayette's Long Center, 111 N. Sixth St. Admission is free.

Foy's residency is sponsored by a grant from the Tippecanoe Arts Federation and the Indiana Arts Commission. It includes hands-on workshops conducted by Foy with all the local jazz bands. Foy will also be featured during a noon Jan. 19 concert in Loeb Playhouse with the Purdue Jazz Band. Admission is free.

For Jazz Festival details visit http://www.purdue.edu/bands/jazzfest.  For headliner ticket information call the Purdue Box Office 765-494-3933.