Jazz Ensembles

The 2008 fall semester will feature several performances by the Sacramento State Jazz Ensembles, Jazz Combos and Vocal Jazz Ensembles.

The Sacramento State Jazz Combos will perform two concerts this fall semester: October 3 and December 5. These Friday performances, featuring various student combos, will take place at 4:00 pm in the Music Recital Hall.  Jazz combo concerts are free and open to the public!  Please come by and support the efforts of our students in a small group setting as they perform arrangements of jazz standards and original compositions.

Both of our student Big Bands will be teaming up for a joint concert on Thursday, October 30 at 8:00pm in the Music Recital Hall. The bands will perform a variety of classic and modern jazz charts. Admission is $8 general and $5 for students and seniors.

The Sacramento State Vocal Jazz program, under the direction of Kerry Marsh, has continued to bring in major awards and accolades, winning its fifth Down Beat Student Music Award for best vocal jazz group in the USA or Canada in 2008, and sweeping the collegiate division of the Reno Jazz Festival in April.  The Jazz Singers (pictured at right) premiered an ambitious four-movement suite, Pale Blue Dot, which will be the title piece for the program’s fourth album produced under Marsh’s direction, to be released in the mid-fall.  The program will be taking on a new look for the fall, with the Jazz Singers spending the entire semester in the recording studio, with the students composing, arranging, recording, and producing all new music, utilizing Sac State’s own expanding recording facilities.  C-Sus and Vox 2 will be live performing and touring ensembles, with a final concert on Friday, December 12th at 7pm in the Music Recital Hall. Admission for that concert will be $8 general and $5 for students and seniors.

On Saturday, December 13, the Sacramento State Jazz Studies Program will host the annual Winter Jazz Festival.  This exciting one-day festival will feature performances by area high school and middle school jazz big bands, and combos.  World-class adjudicators & clinicians are a focus of this educational event.  For more information on the Winter Jazz Festival as well as many other jazz programs and events, please visit the Jazz Studies website.

-back to top -