NEW ORLEANS – Loyola University New Orleans invites the public to enjoy an evening of traditional Jazz at its inaugural concert honoring Connie and Elaine Jones.
The Connie Jones Legacy Band, which features musicians who played with Jones throughout his career, will perform Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. in Nunemaker Auditorium, in the Monroe Science Complex, 6363 St. Charles Ave. Ed Wise, bassist and Loyola faculty member, will lead the ensemble as it performs Jazz standards including Jazz Me Blues, Original Dixieland One Step and Do You Know What It Means (to Miss New Orleans).
“Connie Jones described himself as a ‘saloon trumpet player’ in his usual witty, self-deprecating fashion,” said Wise. “Actually, Connie played the trumpet’s closest relative, the cornet, and his original style of Jazz improvisation is legendary among both traditional and modern Jazz musicians across the planet.”
Connie Jones and his wife, Elaine, gifted the University with a $1 million endowment to host a traditional Jazz concert series that will take place each fall and spring semester. The endowment also funded renovations to the college’s band room, and a hallway with mementos dedicated to Jones’s life and other artifacts honoring Jazz greats with Loyola ties. The endowment also will fund an adjunct professor to teach a traditional Jazz combo each semester.
“It is an extremely unique experience for our students to learn alongside, play alongside and also to hear from the people who kept this particularly special style of music alive,” said Kate Duncan, director of the college’s School of Music and Theatre Professions and the Conrad N. Hilton Chair in Music Industry. “It’s a renewable gift, not a one-time purchase of materials, but a gift that will positively impact a legacy of many years of students to come.”
Gordon Towell, the coordinator of the school’s Jazz studies program, said the kind donation from Connie and Elaine Jones has enabled the college to do so much more for the student musicians at Loyola, which has the largest collegiate Jazz studies program in New Orleans.
“The upgrading of the rehearsal facilities gives us an opportunity to craft our performances in a state-of-the-art room,” Towell said. “The addition of concerts, residencies and faculty allows us to further explore the genre of traditional New Orleans Jazz, of which Connie was an excellent practitioner. This gift will develop and inspire future generations of musicians and give them a solid foundation in the roots of the
music.”
Tickets to the Sept. 19 concert are $20 for the general public, $15 for faculty members and senior citizens, $8 for students and free for Jazz majors.
###