Last call for Pitt’s Jazz Week

Take 10 jazz musicians, put them in a 2,000 seat auditorium on a Saturday night, add various… Take 10 jazz musicians, put them in a 2,000 seat auditorium on a Saturday night, add various musical instruments and an audience and what do you get? While this may sound like the beginning to a very bad joke, there’s actually a real answer to the question.

What you get is the culmination of the University of Pittsburgh’s 35th annual Jazz Week. The concert, the last event of the weeklong celebration of jazz music and its culture, is to be held this Saturday in the Carnegie Music Hall.

The 8 p.m. show will feature jazz greats such as trumpeters Nicholas Payton and Charles Tolliver, flutist Nestor Torres and saxophonist James Spaulding. In addition, Pitt’s own History of Jazz professor, Dr. Nathan Davis, will be playing saxophone.

Funded largely by the University and private grants, Jazz Week, which started Wednesday and runs through Saturday evening, has brought many influential people from the jazz world to Pitt’s campus. Past performers include jazz legends Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Clarke, Grover Washington Jr. and Herbie Mann.

Jazz Week, founded by Dr. Davis in 1970, has a lecture and concert series on jazz music and its culture. Seminar topics range from how to enter the music business to how to master an instrument and how to arrange music. According to Pitt’s Jazz Music Department’s Web site, various musicians, historians and critics are invited each fall to campus to lead the various events.

In an effort to help the city in which jazz was created, all proceeds from the concert will benefit the New Orleans disaster relief fund. Tickets can be purchased at the William Pitt Union box office at a cost of $8 for students and $18 for all others.