Star Power at the Beach!
Get ready to mark your calendars with multiple events you’ll want to attend October 11-15, as you learn what True Blue Jazz Festival 2023 is bringing to the community.
The independent, straight-ahead Jazz Festival is celebrating their 11th Anniversary in style, featuring an array of great jazz performances, including local favorites like Libby York, to 10-time Grammy winner Janis Siegal, from Manhattan Transfer. True Blue Jazz offers multiple options for both free and ticketed shows in a dozen venues in both Rehoboth and Lewes.
True Blue Jazz always kicks off on Wednesday of the Festival week at Bethany Blues with Youth Jazz Appreciation Night from 6:00-9:00 p.m. The local middle school band students start the event followed by high school jazz bands from multiple school districts across Sussex and Kent counties.
Headline shows are held at the Boardwalk Plaza Hotel featuring vocalist Paula Johns with the Joe Holt Trio on Thursday night, the Camille Thurman Quintet on Friday night, Libby York and Randy Napolean on Saturday night, and Eddie Sherman and Peggy Raley’s Sunday Closing Brunch with special guests and jazz giants, Terell Stafford, Gerry Weldon, and Vince Ector.
A second Saturday night headline concert will be held at Nassau Valley Vineyards in Lewes, featuring multi-time Latin Grammy winner/Grammy nominee Bobby Sanabria and his 24-piece Multiverse Big Band with vocalists Janis Siegal, Antoinette Montague, and Jennifer Jade Ledesna.
True Blue Jazz’s “Local & Live” venues feature free jazz shows across the weekend at Rehoboth venues Aqua, The Blue Hen at Avenue Inn, Blackwall at the Beach, Cooter Brown’s, and The Ocean Glass Inn. Lewes venues are: Lefty’s, Bramble & Brine at The Buttery, and Nassau Valley Vineyards.
On Saturday, October 14, from 12:00 to 6:00 p.m. at the Rehoboth Beach Fire House, the six-hour Big Band Marathon kicks off with the Cape Henlopen High School Jazz Band, followed by the Temple University Big Band, the Columbia Jazz Orchestra, and the DelMarVa Big Band with a Hammond B3 Organ Trio between bands. All proceeds from this concert benefit the Rehoboth Volunteer Fire Company.
True Blue Jazz was founded in 2012 by local jazz musicians Eddie Sherman and Peggy Raley, in response to the void of straight-ahead jazz being offered throughout the Cape region. While producing monthly supper club shows featuring jazz artists from across the mid-Atlantic, fans urged them to put together a Festival dedicated to Real Jazz.
As music education has always been paramount to both Peggy and Eddie, True Blue Jazz was formed as a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of America’s one true art form, jazz. This is accomplished through the many-faceted True Blue Jazz/Youth Jazz Initiative that supports young musicians throughout Sussex County and across Delaware. The Initiative has provided thousands of dollars in scholarships to local graduating seniors going on for professional careers in music as either music educators or career musicians. It provides instruments to kids in need and private instruction, at the behest of band directors, for students to excel in the audition process for college admissions.
Additionally, local school bands, student ensembles, and individuals are given multiple performance opportunities across the school year. The pinnacle of these activities comes during the Festival week when True Blue Jazz headline artists come into area schools to conduct Master Classes/Clinics with the students. Peggy Raley says, “These moments are, by far, the most rewarding for Eddie and me. Over the course of a few hours under the mentoring of these world-renowned artists, you watch these kids transform. You see the light bulbs going off. You witness them dig into parts of themselves they didn’t know they had. They’re playing one-on-one with legends, and for a lot of them—it’s life altering.”
Cape Henlopen High School (CHHS) Band Director Chris Burkhart says, “True Blue Jazz Festival is a champion for jazz education. In the past five years alone, the festival has brought in Wycliffe Gordon, Camille Thurman, Vuyo Sotashe, Paul Carr, Peter and Will Anderson, the Fred Hughes Trio, and Emmet Cohen to give clinics to the CHHS Jazz Band. Cape students have hung backstage at True Blue concerts with Christian McBride and the late great NEA jazz master Jimmy Heath.
“True Blue has given thousands of dollars in scholarships, bought horns and equipment for kids, and supported our young performers as they’ve gone on to achieve their own professional success. Eddie and Peggy aren’t just providing world-class concerts to our region, they are ensuring the future of the great American art form by investing in youth jazz education. We are incredibly lucky to have these jazz crusaders supporting us and are eternally grateful for what they do.”
For the True Blue Jazz Festival schedule, more information, and tickets go to truebluejazz.org. ▼
True Blue Jazz “Alumni” performer, Trumpeter and Vocalist Benny Benack III, photo by Deny Howeth