Homecoming – Jazz Comes Home with Dick Oatts

Jazz Comes Home

with Dick Oatts

October 6, 2018

Featuring Dick Oatts

with a trio of Iowa’s top musicians

Plus selections performed with an all-star ensemble of local high school students.

Coralville Center for the Performing Arts 1301 5th Street, Coralville IA 52241

Ticket Prices: Adults $45.00, Students $15.00

(plus $2 facility fee)

Buy tickets at coralvillearts.org or call 319.248.9370.

“Homecoming” celebrates the impact that Iowans are making on the national and international jazz scene by bringing a local native back home to headline a special concert.

One of the top saxophonists on the New York scene today, Dick Oatts, returns to Iowa Oct. 6 at the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts.

The concert is a fund raiser which will support KCCK’s jazz education programs, Schoolhouse Jazz and The Corridor Jazz Project, which serve nearly 4,000 students each year and are offered free to area schools.

Dick Oatts is a Jefferson, Iowa native and was brought up in a musical family. His father Jack, also a saxophonist, was a legendary Iowa jazz educator who is largely credited with introducing the idea of jazz band to high schools in the state.

Dick attended Drake University before starting his professional career in Minneapolis/St. Paul and then moving to New York in 1977. Shortly after arriving in the city, he joined the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, and has toured, recorded, and performed both as a sideman and a leader with Bob Brookmeyer, Joe Lovano, Terrel Stafford, Flim and The BBs, Fred Hersch and dozens of other leading players.

He’s been a featured artist with the Metropole Orchestra, the WDR Big Band, the Mats Holmquist/Dick Oatts Orchestra, and is the artistic director and lead alto for the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. He’s recorded ten solo CDs and co-led five others on the Steeplechase label. He’s appeared at jazz festivals as a soloist and clinician through the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. He is a professor at the Boyer School of Music and Dance at Temple University and “Artist in Residence” at the Amsterdam Conservatory.

Performing with Dick will be a trio of Iowa’s top musicians, Jason Danielson-Piano, Dave Tiede-Drums, and Blake Shaw-Bass. Dick will also do a clinic with a group of student players, who will join him at the concert.

Tickets for Homecoming are $45, with a special $15 price for students with a school or college ID. There will be a dessert reception and meet-and-greet with the musicians after the concert.