While Hurricane Ida was heading towards New Orleans and the State of Louisiana, we were up in the northern part of Arizona at the Prescott Jazz Summit, celebrating its 20th anniversary.
Festival Director, Founder and Leader of the Stan Kenton Legacy Orchestra and other groups, Mike Vax presented a dynamic group of professional and world class musicians. Their biographies and affiliations named anyone and everyone in the industry. Comedian and Master of Ceremonies, Pete Barbutti, kept the laughs (and some corn!) coming in between numbers and provided the audience with lots of well-placed humor. A Tonight Show veteran, he has appeared on national television over 1000 times.
We were very excited to welcome New Orleans Traditional Jazz Camp Executive Director Banu Gibson to the Summit after having just spent time with her in New Orleans (see my August column). Banu is also a bandleader, vocalist, dancer, banjo/guitar player, director, choreographer, and manages her own record label (Swing Out Records). She has lived in New Orleans since 1981.
Blues Brothers alumnus Tom “Bones” Malone, a gifted multi-instrumentalist, wrote the chart for the skit that introduced John Belushi and Dan Aykr
