STORY BY GEORGE MURRAY
PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
The 34th annual Sun Valley Jazz and Music Festival rolls through town next week, beginning on Wednesday, Oct. 18, and continuing through Sunday, Oct. 22.
Since the conception of the festival in 1989, the event has proven to be a mainstay in the valley each year. Thiry-four years later, the same energy and spirit that inspired Tom Hazzard to put on the festival is carried on by his family.
“We belong to the music as much as it belongs to us. It is our responsibility to keep the music alive,” said Carol Loehr, daughter of Tom Hazzard and co-director of the event. “It has been a privilege to be able to share the music for all these years.”
Tom Hazzard had the idea to start the event in 1989 while driving home from a jazz festival in California.
“My parents cooked up this crazy idea…my dad said to my mom, ‘You know, Barb, Sun Valley would be a great place for a jazz festival.’ My father grew up in Boise and never lived in Sun Valley, but he brought it to the valley because he thought it was a magical place. He was right on that decision because people come back not only for the music but also because they love Sun Valley,” said Loehr.
Loehr said her father instilled in her a deep love for jazz at an early age.
“My dad wired our house with speakers all over the house long before that was really a common thing in homes. He had a little recording studio set up in our living room and he would have his reel-to-reel tapes going with all the jazz, big band, and swing music. When I was around six years old, he asked me, ‘Well, Carolyn, what do you think of this music?’ and I said, ‘I dig jazz.’ Growing up, I wasn’t aware that there were other kinds of music. It was a big part of our family.”
Loehr has her festival favorites.
“Tom Hook is a musician who comes from New Orleans. He brings that New Orleans beat, and there’s a specific backbeat to the old New Orleans jazz that I really love. Another one of my favorites is the Kings of Swing. They come from Boise, and they’ve been a part of the festival for all 34.”
Part of the Sun Valley Jazz and Music Festival’s mission is keeping jazz alive for generations to come.
“We work with the band at Wood River High School. They’ve brought their big band out for the event for over a decade now. In the past, we’ve also taken workshops to different schools in an effort to introduce the young students to jazz.”
It’s important that people hear jazz live, Loehr said.
“The thing about jazz, the unique characteristic of jazz, is that the music includes improvisation. And that’s the reason it’s so important that it continues to be performed live. Take an old Louis Armstrong tune, for example. People will recognize the tune, but the players that are playing the tune will improvise and play it in a way that it’s never been played before.”
In that way the tune becomes fresh, new and alive every time it’s played to a live audience, Loehr said.
“That’s because the musicians play the music that’s in their hearts,” she added. “A lot of jazz music is written down on charts, but the real energy of the music comes from the improvisation from the heart. A particular solo that a trumpet player might take may never be written down or played exactly that same way ever again. It’s a living sort of music that changes moment by moment and artist by artist.”
This year’s Festival features five different venues with a new show debuting at each venue every hour and a half. That means 163 shows over five days featuring 150 musicians and 150 volunteers.
“We like to joke that it takes one volunteer for each musician because getting musicians together is sort of like herding cats,” Loehr quipped.
Some people find a venue they like and stay there while others follow around a band they like.
“The Sun Valley Company employees tell us that it’s their favorite event of the year because the people are so nice and everybody’s always happy,” she said. “That describes it well. It’s just so much fun, the energy is electric, people meeting new friends, laughing, and dancing. We have 90-year-olds out on the dance floor dancing. You have to dance!”
COMMUNITY CONCERTS
The Sun Valley Jazz and Music Festival will offer free community concerts from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. at Ketchum Town Square on Wednesday, Oct. 18, and Thursday, Oct. 19. Wednesday’s concert features the Carl Sonny Leyland Trio, a boogie woogie, blues and jazz band. Thursday’s features the Dave Bennett Quartet, which plays hard-driving swing, rockabilly, jazz, pop and gospel.
On Friday it will showcase the Wood River High Wind Machine at 8 p.m. in the continental Room.
The Midiri Brothers Sextet will perform at 9:30 a.m. at the Presbyterian Church of the Big Wood.
“Those are good places for local people to go that aren’t familiar with the event,” said Co-Director Carol Loehr. “It’s our gift back to the local community, to have those three concerts available to everybody.”
She also mentioned that they are again offering individual day passes this year as an alternative to the five-day all access passes
THE FESTIVAL
The Sun Valley Jazz and Music Festival brings back some old favorites like the Cajun-flavored Tom Rigney and Flambeau and the High Street Party Band, which plays dance music from the 1940s through today.
The Sun Valley Jazz and Music Festival kicks off at 1:45 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 18, in Sun Valley Resort’s Limelight Room. The music on Thursday, Friday and Saturday kicks off at 9:30 a.m. and runs to 11:30 p.m. Sunday kicks off with a Gospel set by Blue Street Jazz Band at 9 a.m. and ends with the Grand Finale from 2 to 3:30 p.m.
The festival offers five-day all-access passes and individual passes. To learn more, visit https://www.sunvalleyjazz.com. Tickets are available at the Sun Valley Inn Lobby Board room beginning 9;30 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 18.