Jazzin'

By Tim Roberts

As promised last month, we lead with a summary of this year's Jazz Week at the University of Louisville. Word-of-mouth and messages from the organizers proclaimed it to be exciting and successful. U of L jazz instructor Mike Tracy called it, "by far the most musically diverse, exciting, and ambitious. Everyone involved, from the artists to students, from the jazz faculty to the audience, were enthusiastic about the entire experience." All shows from the heavyweight stars who attended – Michael Brecker, Harry Pickens, Stanley Turrentine, and Billy Taylor – were well attended. Young jazz students got a chance to see performances from the legends they could otherwise only hear on record. Congrats and thanks to the jazz faculty at U of L for bringing such a large celebration of jazz to the city.

Other news from our jazz performers in Louisville:

Vocalist Sandy Neuman's debut CD Plum Juicy is now available. Backing her on the recording are some of our own local heavyweights: Gary Falk, Sonny Stephens, Greg Walker, Jon Tropy, Chris Fitzgerald, and Darryel Cotton. Java Men Todd Hildreth and Ray Rizzo help out, too. You can see Sandy at the regular jazz jam Wednesday nights at the Rudyard Kipling starting at 9 p.m.

And speaking of the Java Men, they will be one of the performers during the Louisiana Music / New Orleans Pride Music Conference on April 27-29. The conference offers three days of panel discussions and workshops for novice or professional musicians and takes place in between the two weekends of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. All of the musical events are spread over five or six venues in the city. The Java Men are scheduled to perform on the first night of the conference at the Café Brazil.

If you want to see who will be keeping company with the Java Men, go to www.offbeat.com/lmnop.

The next concert for the Louisville Jazz Society "First Monday" series will be the Ron Hayden Group on Monday, April 6, at the Comedy Caravan in the Mid-City Mall.

The Twice-Told Coffee House will bring you the Bellarmine Jazz Ensembles and Jeff Sherman's Jazz Lab on April 20. Show time is 7:30 p.m.

Dick Sisto, Tyrone Wheeler, and Hugh Petersen – semi-officially known as STP – still have their regular Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night gig at the Seelbach Hotel. Each weekend the trio will bring in a guest member. Stop by and be pleasantly surprised. Dick will be part of Nashville's Main Street Jazz Festival on May 1. And both Dick and Hugh will head down to his home of St. Croix for a small jazz festival in June.

You can catch Splatch every Sunday during April at the Brewery's Side Out. The newest version of this band is said to be improved, with a fresh lemon scent and an easy, one-step applicator.

Live Jazz in Louisville: the real, secret reason Playboy named this city as one of the Music Meccas of the World.