The Jacobs School of Music will present the annual Jazz Celebration on April 23. The event honors the inaugural class of the music school’s Jazz Alumni Hall of Fame.
Seven IU alumni will be recognized at the event, including Jamey Aebersold, the late David Baker, Buddy Baker, Jerry Coker, Roger Pemberton, Whit Sidener and Dominic Spera, according to a Jacobs School of Music press release.
The inductees “helped shape the history of jazz education in the United States, and their contributions to music education have been implemented worldwide,” according to the release.
IU jazz faculty members and students will play the music of the inductees.
Aebersold is a jazz saxophonist, educator and author known for his Jamey Aebersold Jazz Play-A-Long series.
David Baker, who was an award-winning musician and composer, died March 26. He was a distinguished professor of music and was involved in the creation of IU’s bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in jazz studies.
Trombone player Buddy Baker started the IU jazz program after finishing his master’s degree in 1959. He went on to begin the jazz studies program at the University of Northern Colorado.
Coker is the founder of the jazz programs at the University of Miami and the University of Tennessee. In his time as a doctoral student at IU, he led the IU Jazz Ensemble on a 1966 U.S. State Department-sponsored tour of the Near and Middle East.
Pemberton became the first instructor of saxophone and jazz composition at IU in 1961, and he also worked as an arranger and composer.
Sidener is the former chair of the Department of Studio Music and Jazz at the University of Miami.
Trumpet player, composer and arranger Spera taught jazz arranging and composition, jazz history, jazz ensemble and jazz pedagogy at IU until he retired in 1997.
These musicians and educators have “spread the gospel of jazz” around the world, according to the release.
The effect of their work has made the music school a “significant fountainhead for jazz education,” according to the release.
Brooke McAfee
