Cornell Concert Series will bring hot jazz to cold Ithaca on Feb. 11

Three of the musicians on the Newport Jazz Festival tour are James Moody, left, Cedar Walton, upper right, and Randy Brecker. Catch them at the State Theatre Feb. 11. Courtesy of Cornell Concert Series

The venerable Newport Jazz Festival will make a stop in Ithaca this month.

When the "First American Jazz Festival" came roaring into the Newport Tennis Casino on a mid-July weekend in 1954, the event's success was anything but a sure bet. A brainchild of Boston nightclub owner George Wein with the backing of Newport socialites Louis and Elaine Lorillard, the festival gathered together a massive and motley group of jazz musicians and enthusiasts in the summer playground of America's aristocratic class. Its extraordinary debut was both a shot across the bow of high culture and a shot in the arm of the jazz world. More than a merely successful enterprise, the festival "opened a new era in jazz presentation," in the prophetic words of Down Beat magazine.

Fifty years later Wein has assembled Newport Jazz Festival stars for a commemorative tour that embodies the qualities that have kept Newport vital through the years. Legendary reedman James Moody, trumpeter Randy Brecker, pianist Cedar Walton, tenor saxophonist James Carter, guitarist Howard Alden, drummer Lewis Nash and bassist Peter Washington will perform Wednesday, Feb. 11, at 8 p.m. in the State Theatre (111 W. State St., Ithaca). The concert is sponsored by the Cornell Concert Series, and the program will be announced from the stage.

Tickets for the concert -- ranging from $18 to $29 for adults and $11 to $17 for students of any age attending any institution -- are on sale at the Willard Straight Hall ticket office (255-3430) and at the ticket center at Clinton House (116 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca; 273-4497 or 1-800-284-8422). Tickets also are available through http://www.ithacaevents.com. Student Rush tickets (subject to availability) for $5 will be on sale Feb. 9 and 10.