On Sunday, the jazz ensembles of UNC, N.C. Central University and Duke University came together for the 23rd annual Valentine's Jazz Festival. The festival unites jazz-loving musicians and audiences across the Triangle. Each ensemble performed five songs, including pieces from jazz icons Quincy Jones and Duke Ellington.
The concert was free this year — a change from previous years where tickets cost up to $15 — and brought almost 300 people to UNC's Moeser Auditorium in Hill Hall for two hours of jazz. The audience was made up of students, families, friends and music lovers of all ages with varying levels of jazz knowledge.
Duke University Vice Provost for the Arts John Brown created the festival in 2004 as a way to bring the Triangle together to support the students at all of the participating universities.
Brown is a classically trained bass player who entered college at UNC-Greensboro with the intention of playing in the symphony. The first time he played in Moeser Auditorium was for the Eastern Regional Orchestra in the mid-1980s.
Brown said his favorite thing about the festival is how the musicians and audiences from each university push their rivalries aside to come together for their love of jazz. He also finds value in exposing new audiences to the genre. The music is powerful, and it will do what it's going to do as long as you can get the people in the room to hear it, he said.
“We're growing the tribe of people who love the music [and] can access the music, and you don't have to play,” he said. “You can just be in the audience and enjoy it. And to me, there are parts of that that are just as important as playing.”
Brown opened the festival with welcoming remarks before the UNC jazz ensemble took the stage.
The UNC ensemble started each piece with an improvised prelude by their three pianists, Marvin Koonce, Holland Majors and Ari Staggs. They also brought on a French horn player for their performance of “Skylark” by Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer, arranged by Bob Brookmeyer.
