Q&A: Jim Ketch

The soulful melodies of internationally renowned and local jazz performers will reverberate throughout the community this weekend.

Headlining this year’s Carolina Jazz Festival is Grammy Award-winning bassist Christian McBride and the Inside Straight band. Also featured in the festival are guest artists, the UNC Jazz Band and UNC Jazz Combos.

Staff writer Mary Stevens spoke with Jim Ketch — festival director and director of jazz studies at UNC — about jazz in the community and the festival’s defining features.

Daily Tar Heel: What performance of the festival are you most excited about?

Jim Ketch: The one my students will be in Saturday night. It features the UNC Jazz Band, which I conduct, and our Latin salsa group called Charanga Carolina, and then our artist in residence Steve Wilson, who is a saxophonist who also plays in Christian McBride’s group that will play Friday night.

I’m definitely looking forward to the Christian McBride concert because his music is really great. Our students, we’ve worked so hard to prepare our concert that I’m eager for them to have center stage.

DTH: It sounds like you’ve got a great combination of Grammy Award-winning performers and also students who are learning the art of jazz.

JK: That’s exactly the format. Our formula is to try to let these students rub shoulders with professional artists. We work pretty hard to try to get professional artists who have a deep affinity and connection to the teaching of jazz.

DTH: What features of this year’s festival make it different from past years?

JK: We have a photographic exhibit of pictures that have been taken by a local photographer over the last 10 years or so. The photos are of students, faculty and guest artists — there’s even one of our chancellor because he’s a great jazz bass player.

Also, our jazz band asked me if we could we play our concert in the new Kenan Music Building rather than our Hill Hall Auditorium. There is no auditorium in the Kenan Music Building — we just have this beautiful rehearsal space. It’s really much more acoustically connected to the type of music we play. Hill Hall is a little bit too wide and reverberant for jazz music. We’re going to try to make the rehearsal space feel like a New York night club.

DTH: What is the jazz scene like outside the University?

JK: We really do have a vibrant jazz community in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. There’s a lot going on, particularly in Durham these days — some downtown places are having live jazz throughout the week and weekends. And of course, there’s a wonderful jazz program at North Carolina Central. Just last week the jazz bands from Duke, UNC and North Carolina Central put on an annual Valentine’s weekend concert.

The thing we try to do each year is have a jam session after the big marquee concert. That is being hosted by a really neat organization called The Art of Cool Project. It’s a non-profit organization that has helped to frame and focus the community’s attention on whatever the biggest jazz event may be happening on a given weekend or night.

They’re the host of (the jam session), so I hope that they’re going to bring out players from all over the community. We’re all hoping very much that Christian McBride and his guys will show up and want to join us — or at least listen a little bit to see what the local scene is like.

DTH: Can you tell me about the festival’s history?

JK: I began the program in 1978. That spring we had a very modest jazz festival. Gradually over the years, we’ve gotten more involvement by the University community, more sponsorships from around the campus. The University’s kind of embraced it as a cultural arts event for the University and not just the music department. As a result, it’s probably one of the longest running consecutive jazz festivals in the country.

Visit music.unc.edu for more information about the Carolina Jazz Festival.