By HENRY COLT
Sentinel Staff Writer
The 25th Sitka Jazz Fest will be a four-day confluence of Alaska high school bands, Lower-48 professionals and local enthusiasts – and Kyle Athayde is excited.
Athayde is a frontman, songwriter, conductor, vibraphonist, percussionist, pianist and trumpeter for the Kyle Athayde Dance Party, a 20-piece “big band” from New York and San Francisco. He’s also a seven-time Sitka Fine Arts Camp staff member and, as of this year, a 10-time Sitka Jazz Fest veteran. But he said last year’s Jazz Fest was the first time he came to Sitka with the rest of his band.
“It went so well that we’re bringing the band back up – we like to do it big here!” he said.
Kyle Athayde, right, jams with Sitka High School music students this afternoon in the school music room. The Kyle Athayde Dance Party, a high-energy New York-based band, will perform at this year’s Sitka Jazz Festival which runs February 6-8. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
The Dance Party will indeed be performing at a dance party, 8:30 p.m. Friday at Centennial Hall.
They also will perform at halftime of Wednesday’s Sitka High-Anchorage Christian basketball game (“a very, very recognizable piece – but we’ll keep it a surprise”), Friday’s Brown Bag Luncheon (“a hodgepodge of performances”), the Saturday evening concert and a post-concert late-night Mean Queen jam session. (“All the artists will jam together and who knows what we’re going to do!”)
Gretchen Parlato will join the Dance Party for at least one of the performances. She’s a jazz singer from L.A. whose voice the Boston Globe compared, in the same paragraph, to a cello, trumpet, trombone, saxophone, small child, grown woman, and “conflux where hope, sensuality, and tragedy all merge.”
“There’s always a thrill of being with more instrumentation,” said Parlato, when asked how she felt about sharing a stage with the Kyle Athayde Dance Party. “Usually my settings are pretty intimate.”
Parlato also will lead two workshops with high school musicians attending Jazz Fest from all over the state.
Jazz Fest organizer Michael Kernin said the shoulder-rubbing (and in many cases stage-sharing) between students and professionals (who include pianist Nick Milo and the UCLA Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Performance’s class of 2020) is what sets Sitka Jazz Fest apart.
“You basically get to hang out with the musicians for three straight days,” Kernin said, describing the experience of a typical visiting high school musician at Jazz Fest. “Most places, you’d get in a bus, drive to the venue, play your set, go to the mall, hop on the bus and go home.”
“I think that just as important as the performance is to connect with the community, especially the younger generation,” Parlato said.
She called high school a “great age.”
“You’re young,” Parlato said. “You feel like anything is possible, you’re completely invincible and you probably haven’t had a lot of challenges, artistically, in your life yet – it’s just the beginning. So it’s a really nice time to instill a lot of positivity and encouragement and try to be remembered by the students as someone who inspired them.”
Information on tickets (which can be purchased for all or part of the festival) can be found at https://www.sitkajazzfestival.com/tickets
Jazz Fest Events:
Wednesday
Evening: Halftime, Sitka-Anchorage Christian Basketball game, Sitka High gym. Game starts at 7 p.m.
Thursday
6:30 p.m. Pianist Nick Milo at Centennial Hall.
Friday
Performances in the schools
Noon-1 p.m. free brown bag lunch concert, Odess Theater
6-7 p.m. Sitka Charitable Trust Student Concert with Ketchikan High School, Thunder Mountain High School and Blatchley Middle School Jazz II.
7 p.m. Westmark Sitka Evening Concert, with the Sitka High School Jazz Band and special guests: vocalist Gretchen Parlato and the Herbie Hancock Performance Institute.
8:30-11 p.m. Big Band Dance Party, Centennial Hall.
Saturday
6-7 p.m. Alaska State Council on the Arts Student Concert, with Ketchikan Vocal Jazz, DZ Middle School, West Valley High School and JDHS Jazz Bands
7:15 p.m. Alaska Airlines Evening Concert with Sitka High Vocal Jazz, BMS Jazz I, the All Alaska Jazz Band and the Kyle Athayde Dance Party & Guests
10 p.m. After-hours at the Mean Queen downstairs, ages 21 and older.
