Basking in the cool, placid air of last year’s Syracuse Jazz Fest, the West Coast/East Coast Dream Band nearly stole the show from the festival’s Friday night headliner, Sergio Mendes and the Brazil 2008. The group covered tunes like Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” which they recorded on the 1997 album Tribute to Jeff Porcaro (Zebra), in memory of the late session drummer and member of Toto, and generally shined with the help of jazz keyboardist David Garfield’s high-energy style. 

The 27th edition of the Syracuse Jazz Fest, which will be held at the campus of Onondaga Community College, 4585 W. Seneca Turnpike, on Friday, June 26, and Saturday, June 27, starting at 4 p.m. both days, will feature two reprise performances from Garfield’s gaggle of musical friends. That dual booking comes with heaping spoonfuls of kudos from festival organizer Frank Malfitano, who rarely gives a band two slots at the fest, but made an exception for Garfield’s prowess for stirring up a crowd.

Garfield spoke about his background with the Syracuse New Times during a telephone interview on June 18. Pronouncing great respect for those who stay in the music business despite the inclement weather of the modern industry, Garfield, 52, discussed his nearly 30 years as a professional jazz musician and how it has brought him to the famed Syracuse grandstand.

Born in Chicago, Garfield later moved to St. Louis with his music-loving parents, Sol and Amy. At age 7 Garfield began taking piano lessons, which led him to study music in his free time as a high school student. Garfield formed his own bands, including Karizma, Los Lobotomys, Creatchy and the Cats and the David Garfield Band, a networking experience that has created vast amounts of musical comrades for him.

Garfield has also served as a producer for a variety of albums through his own label, Creatchy, one of his pseudonyms. He has recorded 11 albums, the latest of which, Tribute to Jeff Porcaro Revisited (2005), recaptures the success of the original by offering new recordings of the tunes that honored the late musician. 

Thrilled by the upcoming CD release of a collaboration with Smokey Robinson called Time Flies When You’re Having Fun, Garfield is also busy working on new albums from Karizma, Los Lobotomys and a solo album for Alex Ligertwood, an accomplished vocalist who has performed with Santana in the past but now sings for Garfield’s group. Additionally, Garfield and his ever-evolving group will travel to Europe, Japan and Toronto following their Jazz Fest show, demonstrating the degree to which Garfield remains one of the busiest and most sought-after keyboardists in the world.

Garfield’s band will also perform during an unprecedented jam session dedicated to Hiram Bullock at about 11:30 p.m. on Friday (see a complete Jazz Fest line-up below). Bullock passed away last July 25, following a battle with cancer. Bullock, a musical compadre of David Letterman’s bassist Will Lee and keyboardist Paul Shaffer, has been fondly missed since his passing; he is especially remembered by fans of the Jazz Fest, during which he performed in 2007 with Lee. 

Admission to the festival is free. For more information, visit www.syracusejazzfest.com. Also, for more information about Garfield, visit www.creatchy.com. 

Q: How did you get your nickname, “Creatchy?”

A: When I moved to California in the 1970s I’d just come straight out of high school. I came out with a friend in search of music and fame and fortune, and I let my hair get really long and grew a beard. I was 18 and wild and crazy, so my friend, at the time the drummer in our band, Carlos Vega, coined the nickname “creature,” because part of the way I play is kind of wild, like I’m a wild man on the keyboards. 

I never was fond of the nickname, but it stuck. Then, down the road, the musicians in Toto kind of softened the name. Mike Porcaro, the bass player for Toto, used to say, “Hey, Creatchy!” Whatever your name was he’d put a “Y” on the end of it, you know? I liked “Creatchy” better than “creature.”

Q: You grew up in St. Louis. How did you get into music there?

A: My family was musical, and my grandmother had bought a piano way back in the day in the 1920s—a Steinway—and everybody in that house took piano lessons. My older sister was a pretty active pianist, and it was just a musical environment. We listened to music, my parents appreciated music, and I started lessons. It was around that time music was changing. The Beatles came out and the Monkees and all that stuff, so you know pretty much music was my big interest.

I started piano lessons when I was little, but when I got a little older I chose drums as my instrument, because at school they didn’t have a piano. Then, as rock’n’roll came out, I got a drum set, and drums became nearly my thing for a long time. Piano was just something that I had a foundation on. 

In high school I got into the jazz band and started discovering jazz. At that time there were a lot of jazz-rock bands like Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears. That was all happening in the early 1970s, so our high school stage band was playing some of that music, and it turned me on to jazz. 

I went to some of the big band camps in the summers. There was this Stan Kenton Jazz Camp, and I went to another jazz camp called Interlochen. That was basically my musical training. When I got out of high school I met some local guys who were playing in the clubs. I started hanging out in the clubs and I was just self-taught through summer music camps and through extracurricular programs. I just started working and playing around all the time, and then at the end of the summer I just moved straight out to Los Angeles. I never did go to college. Like I told you, I was wild and crazy, and I started going around town asking people to let me sit in and they gave me a gig, you know?

Q: How did you get to know the members of Toto?

A: When I came out to LA in the 1970s there was a group of musicians that were children of professional musicians. David Paich is the piano player in Toto, and his father, Marty Paich, was a big arranger and composer. There were the Porcaro kids, and their dad, Joe Porcaro, was a studio drummer. Mark and Joe Williams: Their father is John Williams from the Boston Pops. Also Sherry Goffin Kondor and Louise Goffin; their mom was Carole King. So a lot of these kids were second-generation entertainment people. 

I was more interested in jazz and fusion at the time, and those guys were also into jazz and fusion, so I met them. They had their own band, like a garage band. They basically grew out of a high school band that played dances and rehearsed in the garage. They appreciated what I brought from jazz and fusion, and I really appreciated all the knowledge they had about the studio business, the music business, the recording business and the touring business. So we became friends and we kind of admired each other. They often played for Boz Scaggs at that time. 

When they started Toto in 1979, we were all around the same neighborhood, the same scene. I was down in the studio when they were doing their first record, and at the same time one of my bands was playing every week, and they would come to our gigs and hang out in the audience. We were kind of copacetic or whatever you’d call it. We were around the same time at the same place, kind of appreciating each other, so that’s kind of what grew out of it.

Q: So from there you went on to form your own bands?

A: It took a while before I broke through that wall, but within a little over a year I had my own band and we were getting a lot of attention, and I got the job with Willie Bobo, who was one of the icons in town at the time. From there I went right to Freddie Hubbard’s band, and this was all within the first two years that I was in Los Angeles.

Q: Although you played with untold numbers of musicians from that point, you also played with Spinal Tap on Break Like the Wind, the 1992 follow-up album to their first film’s 1984 soundtrack. How did that come about?

A: My friend Steve Lukather, the guitarist in Toto who I played with and collaborated with for years, was producing a couple cuts on the record, and he let me in. It was real funny, because I had watched the movie and I was kind of a fan, and I came in the studio and I walked right by the guys and said, “Where’s Spinal Tap?” I didn’t recognize them, because they didn’t have any of their makeup on. They’re so interesting, because they’re witty and they’re always making these jokes, and it was funny, because I wasn’t even laughing at any of their jokes. Looking back on it I just didn’t quite understand their real trip: that they are real esoteric. They’re different people in real life than when you see them on the stage.

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Q: This is your second year at the Syracuse Jazz Fest. Are you excited to return?

A: It is! Two years ago when Aretha Franklin was there, Frank {Malfitano} had invited me to come, and I was looking into coming just to be there—to hang out as a guest—but I wasn’t able to make it due to some conflicts. Then last year was my first year performing there, and my first year at the festival, and we really enjoyed being there. This year we’re going to be there for two nights. I understand they don’t normally ask people back. It’s a real, real honor. 

Q: Did you come to know Malfitano through the grapevine of the jazz world?

A: Well, that is a good question. I’m a very good friend of Will Lee’s. Will started playing with us with Los Lobotomys back in the 1980s, and we’ve been collaborating since then. I actually met Frank through Will, and I’d heard about him through the years, because he’s a good friend of Will’s, and also of Hiram Bullock, another friend of ours who was a friend of Frank’s. 

He’s a real dedicated music supporter, and I don’t know how to say it enough: how important people like Frank are. Without them, the music scene is drying up, you know? He’s keeping it going, and I can’t say enough good things about Frank for his dedication to good music. He’s given a lot of people a chance to play, including myself.

Q: During your performance last year at the Syracuse Jazz Fest, you featured Alex Ligertwood on vocals as well as Steve Ferrone, who performed with the Average White Band in the past, on drums. Will those guys return?

A: Yeah. The core band from last year is coming back, and then we’ll have Will, who will be with us on Friday night as he was last year, and then Randy Brecker will be with us. We’re also including our percussionist, Lenny Castro, who was not with us last year. We decided we wanted to pull out all the stops. Lenny is one of the greatest percussionists in the world. If you look at any record—just Google him—he’s played with the Rolling Stones, just anybody: you name it. He’s been with us since 1979, so it’s going to be a real treat to have him there. He’ll be there both nights.

Q: So Ligertwood and Ferrone are the key members of the David Garfield Band?

A: Yeah, that’s pretty much what’s happening all summer, but the way it works is that I originally had an instrumental fusion band called Karizma. We were quite popular in Japan, and all over the world. Then we also had Los Lobotomys, and that’s the band that Will played with and that the members of Toto played with: It was Jeff Porcaro and Steve Lukather. The guys in Toto like to play in that band because they get to play music that they couldn’t play in Toto. It was a release for them. So, those were my primary bands, and then after Jeff passed away in 1992 I started a tribute project to him, and I brought in a lot of great vocalists. 

I recorded “Let’s Stay Together,” which is sung by Michael McDonald, and I had Don Henley and Richard Marx and David Pack on backup vocals, and that song became very well-played on the radio. In 1997 it was Top 10 on jazz radio in the states and in Japan. So, what really happened is I needed to find a vocalist to sing “Let’s Stay Together” with me {on the road} because that was his song. Alex had just left Santana, and he was an old friend of Steve Ferrone’s. They go way back, because they were in bands in the United Kingdom together.

I met Alex through Steve, and I asked him to come down and sing “Let’s Stay Together” with us, and it was magic. I basically hired him to come play one song on the gig. It was wonderful. He sang that song the first night and I thought, “Oh, my God!,” and then what happened was I started adding Alex on every other song. Like we did “Lowdown” as an instrumental, and then Alex started singing it. One by one we integrated him into every song. Then we started writing together, he and I, so you fast-forward 10 years later and we’ve got a great repertoire that Alex and I do together. 

I really prefer working with Alex and doing our vocal material to doing Karizma’s or Los Lobotomys’ music, because that music is only instrumental. I really feel that with vocals we reach more people and more people are entertained by our set. 

Basically, Alex and I do a lot of gigs, and we use Steve whenever we can, because Steve’s also a member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers right now. When Tom’s working, Steve’s with Tom, so we have substitutes for him, but when Tom’s not working then Steve’s there, so we’re really lucky that Tom’s not working! And if you ever get a chance to see Steve with Tom Petty, he plays that gig unbelievably. He’s a great drummer for that band. Steve is one of the consummate all-time, great rock’n’roll drummers.

Q: Scores of interesting musicians perform at the Jazz Fest every year. Did you get a chance to meet any during last year’s gig?

A: Oh, yes, definitely. I really had never spent that much time with Sergio {Mendes} before that. We hung out in the hotel and in the lounge and we talked, and he’s a very nice man. He was very encouraging. It’s funny that as I think about it now I’ve never called him, but he gave me his number and told me to call him and get together. I guess a whole year went by and I never followed up on that. But it was wonderful meeting Sergio and hanging out with him. 

Ivan Lins is an old friend so it was great to see him again. I met some of his band members there for the first time—the saxophone player and guitarist. When we were in Europe later that year we ran into them again, and then we were at Java Jazz Festival together, and we ended up jamming a couple nights together. It really was fantastic to play with those guys. Ever since we met in Syracuse we kind of had a mutual admiration for each other, so it culminated when we finally got to play together at that festival, in Indonesia of all places. 

Then, last year, some of the guys that were playing on Saturday night started showing up at the hotel and we ran into them. Dave Weckl is an old friend of mine, and Mike Stern, I think, and we ran into the guys from Chaka Khan’s band: They’re friends of ours. It’s kind of like an old home week when we’re there. Some of the guys, like Lenny Castro, myself and Steve Ferrone—we’ve played with so many people over the years that wherever we go we run into friends and people we’ve known.

Q: Anyone you hope to bump into at this year’s Jazz Fest?

A: First of all, Randy Brecker’s band with Bill Evans. I’m really looking forward to seeing them. I love Bill Evans. 

Also, Kenny G. His band members are all friends of mine. We used to tour together. Kenny used to open for us when I was with George Benson, and it will be good to see those guys. I haven’t seen Kenny’s show in quite a while. He was just at the Playboy Jazz Festival {at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl on June 14}. 

Kenny gets a bad rap from people, because I think people are jealous of his success. I’ve known him since he was in Jeff Lorber’s band {The Jeff Lorber Fusion}. He’s a great guy, and a good player. He’s done a lot to popularize jazz and instrumental music. I’m looking forward to seeing his band. They’re going to go on right after us. 

Q: What do you think is in store for the future of jazz?

A: The whole live music and jazz music world has kind of shrunk in some ways due to the fact that some people have gotten older, some people have passed away, styles have changed, technology has changed. However, people like Frank Malfitano, Randy Brecker, Will Lee and the guys in my band, we try to keep it going and it really becomes a labor of love to keep live music and especially jazz music happening. As you look around and you see what else is going on it’s Hannah Montana and Keith Urban. You know what I’m saying.     

Jazz Fest Lineup

Main Stage

Friday, June 26

Westhill High School Jazz Ensemble, 4 p.m.

Under the direction of Anthony Mastrobattisto.

The John Tropea Band, 5 p.m.

John Tropea is a prolific studio and
session guitarist, having worked with some of the most successful
artists in the world. Alice Cooper, Eric Clapton and the late Harry
Chapin all counted Tropea as a contributor to their albums, and his
work in the New York City club scene in the 1970s is well documented.

The guitarist also plays and tours with the original
Blues Brothers Band, which still travels the world playing as a
headliner at blues, rock and jazz festivals. Tropea has also toured the
world with Paul Simon, Dr. John and Deodato.

Tropea’s solo career spans more than 30 years, with his first release, Tropea
(Video Arts Music), coming in 1975 and including artists such as the
Brecker Brothers, bassist Will Lee and drummer Steve Gadd. He has since
released 10 albums with the John Tropea Band, including two in 2007, The Time is Right (Video Arts Music) and Take Me Back To The Ol’ School (STP Records).

Also a talented composer and arranger,
Tropea has worked on commercials and film scores in addition to his
session and solo work, and has co-produced many of his own records.

The current incarnation of the John Tropea Band is a
seven-piece group that swings from jazz to funk to soul with a full
horn section and intricate interplay. With tight arrangements and
musical virtuosity, the band is able to spread out its playing while
still keeping to its elaborate song structures. Their performance at
the Syracuse Jazz Fest is one of the few in which the full band will
play in 2009.

The Randy Brecker/Bill Evans Soulbop Band, 6:30 p.m.

Collaborations among great musicians
have long led to special performances and unforgettable experiences.
The Randy Brecker/Bill Evans Soulbop Band is no different. Pioneering
jazz trumpeter Randy Brecker has carved a dazzling career playing with
music legends such as Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Parliament-Funkadelic
and Frank Zappa. With five Grammy Awards on his resume, the in-demand
Brecker has been recognized for his successes throughout his career.
His collaboration with his brother, saxophone player Michael Brecker,
led to his first Grammy for their album Out of the Loop (GRP) in 1994.

Saxophone player Bill Evans has been pushing the limits
of his instrument for almost 30 years. Starting out in Miles Davis’
comeback band as a 22-year-old in 1980, he joined John McLaughlin’s
jazz fusion group the Mahavishnu Orchestra in 1985. Since then, his
solo career has combined such diverse styles as hip-hop and bluegrass,
with his newest Grammy-nominated Soulgrass project bringing together
some of the premier bluegrass players in the country.

In 2002, these two musicians joined
forces to form the Randy Brecker/Bill Evans Soulbop Band, which
combines the jazz leanings of Brecker with the funk tendencies of Evans
to create a group that can tear through any genre. The band explores
songs by the Brecker Brothers and former Soulbop band member Hiram
Bullock through a new lens, as well as original compositions by Brecker
and Evans.

In 2005, the band released the two-disc album Soul Bop Band Live
(BHM), a recording taken from their 2004 European tour. The album came
on the heels of extensive touring throughout Europe and the United
States during 2003 and 2004.

The Soulbop Band will be coming to Syracuse in one of
only two confirmed performances in 2009, a special treat for both jazz
and music lovers alike.

The David Garfield Band, 8 p.m.

See accompanying article.

Spyro Gyra, 9:30 p.m.

Formed in Buffalo in 1974 by saxophone player Jay
Beckenstein and keyboardist Jeremy Wall, the band grew out of a
bustling music scene and a weekly Tuesday night jazz jam that attracted
the interests of local jazz lovers and musicians alike. While shaping
an official lineup, the band gained a dedicated following in Western
New York, prompting Beckenstein to come up with a name. Quickly
settling on Spyro Gyra, a club owner’s misspelling of the pond algae
spirogyra, the band began recording their first album.

The addition of keyboardist Tom Schuman and the release
of their self-titled first album in 1978 helped raise Spyro Gyra’s
profile. But it wasn’t until the 1979 release of Morning Dance (Amherst Records), which produced the band’s first Top 40 hit of the same name, and Catching the Sun
(Amherst) in 1980, which got the band their first Grammy Award
nomination in the Best Jazz Fusion Performance category, that Spyro
Gyra took off on a national scale.

The following years saw the addition of longtime
guitarist Julio Fernandez and bassist Scott Ambush and, most recently,
new drummer and percussionist Bonny B.

The quintet has seen a revolving door of musicians over
the years but has remained consistent and prolific. Since 1978, the
band has released 27 albums and received 11 Grammy nominations,
although they have yet to win. However, with four of those 11
nominations coming in the last three years, Spyro Gyra is re-emerging
as a musical force that is not resting on past successes.

Their most recent Grammy nomination was in the Best Pop Instrumental Album category for 2008’s A Night Before Christmas (Crosseyed Bear Productions). Spyro Gyra is currently touring in support of Down the Wire (Crosseyed Bear), released in April, with stops in Brazil, Spain and Italy, as well as cities around the United States.
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Late Night Jam for Hiram, 11:20 p.m.

The festival’s first night will culminate in an all-star
jazz jam dedicated to Hiram Bullock, whose career as a musician,
composer and producer was as prolific as it was impressive. Sharing the
studio with such diverse artists as Barbra Streisand, Billy Joel and
Taj Mahal, Bullock’s sideman work is only a fraction of the music he
contributed over the years. A repeat performer on albums by the Brecker
Brothers, Spyro Gyra, David Sanborn and Jaco Pastorius helped cement
his stature among musicians and jazz lovers, while his early 1980s
stint on NBC-TV’s Late Night with David Letterman as the guitarist in Paul Shaffer’s World’s Most Dangerous Band cemented his place in the minds of the mainstream public.

Bullock died last year due to complications related to throat cancer. Bullock’s first solo effort, the 1986 release From All Sides
(Atlantic), was followed by 12 more records, all self-produced, over
the following 19 years. The albums were made up almost entirely of
songs written and sung by Bullock himself. His last album, 2005’s Too Funky 2 Ignore
(BHM), included 12 Bullock-penned tracks and contributions from Randy
Brecker on trumpet and Marc Quiñones, percussion player for the Allman
Brothers Band.

Known as a dynamic and entertaining performer, Bullock’s
guitar work ranged from pop to funk to jazz and blues, and his ability
to encompass a number of different styles allowed him to play on many
diverse recordings. He also played in the Saturday Night Live band and wrote six songs for the soundtrack of the 1992 Steven Seagal action flick Under Siege.

The Syracuse Jazz Fest has brought together a number of
the musicians who worked with Bullock throughout his career, including
Brecker, CBS Orchestra bass player Will Lee and former bandmate Bill
Evans. 

Saturday, June 27

Manlius-Pebble Hill Jazz Combo, 4 p.m., under the direction of Joe Colombo.

Al Chez and the Brothers of Funk Big Band, 5 p.m.

Al Chesnovitz, better known as Al Chez, is a trumpet
player extraordinaire. Getting his start in his father’s drum corps in
New Jersey at age 9, his career has spanned more than 20 years with
stints in a number of rock, funk and blues bands.

As a teenager in 1979, Chez and some fellow New Jersey
musicians, including Jon Bon Jovi, started The Atlantic City
Expressway, which played locally for five years before disbanding. A
few years later, Chez met Paul Shaffer and was invited to tour with The
World’s Most Dangerous Band.

A veteran of the clubs around New York City and New
Jersey, Chez branched out to California to join the soul-funk band
Tower of Power in 1988 and then played trumpet for the band of blues
master Robert Cray for a short time in the mid-1990s.

Chez has played a number of high-profile tours and
events, from Bon Jovi’s 1987 Slippery When Wet tour to the closing
ceremonies of the 1996 centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta with Stevie
Wonder and B.B. King.

In 1997, Shaffer asked Chez to be a full-time member of the CBS Orchestra, and Chez has been performing on The Late Show with David Letterman
ever since. He maintains a presence as an instructor for a number of
drum corps, and is a staff member for the University of Virginia
Cavalier marching band.

He formed Al Chez and the Brothers of Funk Big Band with two Rochester-area music teachers, Jimmy Steele and Jarred Streiff.

The Steelheads, 6:30 p.m.

This steel drum and percussion group is composed of
musicians chosen from Mott Middle College High School, Mott Community
College and the University of Michigan-Flint. This year at the Syracuse
Jazz Fest they will be led by steel drummer extraordinaire Andy Narell,
a pioneer in the jazz-steel drum genre since his first solo album, the
1979 release Hidden Treasure (Inner City).

An accredited composer, bandleader and producer, Narell
has a number of projects spanning many different countries and types of
music. He currently plays with Sakésho, a quartet specializing in
French Caribbean music, while his own Andy Narell Steelband expands his
work with steel percussion. On June 23 Narell released the album University of Calypso (Heads Up), featuring Trinidadian calypso player Relator.

The David Garfield Band, 8 p.m.

After playing Hiram Bullock’s music on Friday, the band retakes the stage Saturday to perform its own material.

Kenny G, 9:30 p.m.

Since signing his first record deal with Arista Records
in 1982, Kenny Gorelick, better known as Kenny G, has become synonymous
with smooth jazz. The saxophone player, who got his start in Barry
White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra when he was just 17, was recently
named the 25th highest-selling artist of all time in the United States
by the Recording Industry Association of America, with more than 48
million records sold as of 2006.

Gorelick picked up the saxophone as a child after seeing a sax player perform on The Ed Sullivan Show.
In high school he was initially cut from his school jazz band before
getting in on his second try. His consistent improvement manifested
itself quickly in his solo career, with both his second album, 1983’s G-Force (Arista), and his third, 1985’s Gravity (Arista), certified platinum.

Gorelick’s sixth album, Breathless
(Arista), sold more than 15 million copies in 1992, making it the
best-selling instrumental album ever. Two years later, his first
holiday album, Miracles: The Holiday Album (Arista), became the best-selling Christmas album to date.

In 1997, Kenny G was honored by the Guinness Book of World Records
for holding an E-flat on his saxophone for 45 minutes and 47 seconds.
That same year, he started the Kenny G Miracles Foundation, which
raises money to buy musical instruments and support music education for
underprivileged young people.

Gorelick’s numerous awards include a Grammy for Best
Instrumental Composition in 1993 for his song “Forever In Love,” as
well as a number of Top 40 hits and No. 1 albums on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Chart.

And with his latest album Rhythm and Romance
(Concord Records), Kenny G has shown no signs of slowing down. Released
in February 2008, the collection of Latin jazz songs debuted at No. 14
on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums Chart and at No. 1 on its
Contemporary Jazz Chart. His current tour will stretch into November
and bring him around the country.

Scholastic Stage

Friday, June 26

Henninger High School Jazz Ensemble, 3:30 p.m., under the direction of Michelin Keleher.

Stan Colella All-Star Band, 4:30 p.m., under the direction of Joe Carello.

Paul V. Moore High School Vocal Jazz Ensemble, 6 p.m., under the direction of Dennis Goettel.

Oswego High School Jazz Ensemble, 7:30 p.m., under the direction of Stephen Defren.

West Genesee High School Jazz Band, 9 p.m., under the direction of Steve Frank.

Saturday, June 27

Skaneateles Middle School Jazz Ensemble, 3:30 p.m., under the direction of David Wilber.

Corcoran High School Jazz Ensemble, 4:30 p.m., under the direction of Leigh Scheuerman.

Christian Brothers Academy Jazz Ensemble, 6 p.m., under the direction of Tim Davis.

Liverpool High School Jazz Ensemble, 7:30 p.m., under the direction of James Spadafore.

Onondaga Community College Jazz Band, 9 p.m., under the direction of Steve Frank.

—Compiled by Dan Rys