North Carolina Jazz Festival Plans 40th Annual Bash

On a cold winter’s night in Chicago, 1979, Dr. Harry Van Velsor, esteemed Wilmington, NC, dermatologist and jazz musician, stopped in a local bar for a quick warm up. The only other inhabitant in the bar was the bartender. After a couple of warming drinks, Harry noticed the old piano in the corner, and since he was still the only customer in the place, asked if he might play it. A few tunes later, Harry heard a husky voice ask politely “can I join you?”. The man sat down, and they began playing together. It soon dawned on Harry that he was playing duet boogie-woogie with the famed jazz pianist Art Hodes! The two became friends. VanVelsor and a group of local musicians and jazz lovers had begun a grass roots effort to start a jazz festival, so, a year later, as they were planning what would become the first NC Jazz Festival, Harry turned to Art to help him line up the musicians. In 1980, Wilmington had a population of 44,000, not exactly a large metropolis, but there was a very active live music and jazz scene in the Port City due in part to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington’s music department. In the 1970s, UNCW’s first jazz instructor, Bill Adcock, initiated two new courses to the UNCW curriculum, the History of Jazz and Jazz Ensemble. Van Velsor, had formed a Dixieland group a few years earlier named Dixieland Society of Lower Cape Fear, and they perform