Wheaton Jazz Big Band wraps up the 2018 concert season
The Wheaton Jazz Band, under the direction of Doug Beach, closes the 2018 season at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 9, in Memorial Park in downtown Wheaton.
This energized concert rounds out the summer season with jazz standards that gets the audience toe tapping and reminiscing about the big band era.
Doug Beach, director of jazz studies at Elmhurst College since 1978, leads the Wheaton Jazz Band.
Beach programed a little of everything for the evening. Duke Ellington's "C Jam Blues" opens the concert. There's a bit of Cole Porter with "I've Got You Under My Skin." Stevie Wonder's "You are the Sunshine of My Life" brings the band in a more modern era and Benny Goodman's "Don't Be That Way," features the woodwind section.
Every year, Beach brings in well-known Chicago area musicians to fill in the rhythm section and a few horns as well.
On guitar is Konrad Malinowski, Frank Caruso on piano, Dan Parker on bass, Keith Brooks on drums, and vocalist Jenna Hessein. Also featured is Mark Colby on tenor sax.
Colby joined the faculty at Elmhurst College in 1988, as well as teaching at DePaul University. He has performed with some of the great names in jazz. In New York, he played alongside Maynard Ferguson and toured with Frank Sinatra, and Joe Williams. In 2001, he performed Duke Ellington's version of "The Nutcracker Suite" with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. As a recording artist, clinician and performer, Colby can still be heard all across the Chicago area. Thursday's program features Colby in his original composition, "Blues of a Kind."
The concert is free. For more information, visit www.wheatonmuncipalband.org.