Our next event:
MIT Jazz 50th Anniversary Extravaganza
When: 7:30 PM, Saturday April 27th, 2013 (pre-concert talk at 6:30pm)
Where: Kresge Auditorium
Full description available at the MIT Arts Calendar. Note: This show is currently sold out!! Check the tickets page for updates, and sign up for the wait list.
Tickets available here
Founded in the Fall of 1963 by Boston jazz icon Herb Pomeroy, the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble is comprised of MIT undergraduate & graduate students studying a wide variety of fields. Frederick Harris, Jr. became the fourth Music Director of the FJE in the Fall of 1999. The central mission of the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble is the enhancement of the musical education and artistic sensitivity of its members through the performance of original and standard jazz compositions spanning the gamut of jazz history. The FJE performs four concerts per year on the MIT campus, and features a major jazz soloist on a least one concert. A jazz combo is formed out of the membership of the FJE, and there are also two separate jazz combos under the auspices of the MIT Chamber Music Society. Auditions for all jazz ensembles at MIT are held at the beginning of each academic year. For more information contact Dr. Harris at fharris at mit dot edu.
Recordings:
The Tale of the Skyswimmer
Good Bait - Dameron/Smith
Tango Primer - Guillermo Klein
Moose The Mooch - Parker
Hermanos Latinos - Hermeto Pascoal/G. Klein
The most recent FJE CD, 'The Tale of the Skyswimmer,' can be purchased for $10. Contact Vanessa Gardner for details: vgardner@mit.edu
Other FJE CDs include "Go On" - 1992, and "The MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble" -1990.
Repertoire Sample:
The following are examples of works recently performed by FJE.
Goodbye Pork Pie Hat - Mingus
Bloodcount - Strayhorn
Rockin' in Rhythm - Duke Ellington
Sweet Rain - Mike Gibbs
Woody 'n' You - Gillespie
Say When - J.J. Johnson
Haitian Fight Song - Mingus
Quiet Words of the Wise - Sharifi (world premiere)
Knom - Magali Souriau (world premiere)
El Espejo - Guillermo Klein
Boston Baritone - Hal Crook
Higher Learning - Kenny Werner (world premiere)
Heathcliff Slocum - Don Byron
Commissioned Works:
The FJE annually commissions works from renowned local, national, and international composers. Composers who have written for the FJE include Magali Souriau, Guillermo Klein, Jamshied Sharifi, Kenny Werner, George Schuller, and Mark Harvey. Students from the FJE also compose for the ensemble and for the FJE combo.
Rehearsals:
FJE Rehearsals are Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5:15-7:15 in Killian Hall.
The objectives of rehearsals are to expose FJE members to a diverse body of jazz compositions, to develop improvisation, listening and ensemble skills, and to develop an "esprit de corp" amongst the ensemble.
