Annual jazz festival swings on campus this weekend

Composer/conductor Maria Schneider will headline this year's Cornell Jazz Festival.

The 13th annual Cornell University Jazz Festival continues to swing under the direction of Paul Merrill. Celebrated composer/conductor Maria Schneider, headliner artist for the festival, joins the Cornell University Jazz Ensemble I on Saturday, May 1, and leads a reading session of student composers' charts Sunday, May 2.

In a Time magazine article, Terry Teachout remarked: "To call Schneider the most important woman in jazz is missing the point two ways. She's a major composer -- period."

Having just returned from a second world tour with the Rolling Stones playing saxophone, Tim Ries fronts the Cornell University Jazz Ensemble II on Friday, April 30. The Bill Saxton Trio is featured at an April 29 concert, invited after playing with the Jazz Ensemble I in a performance at the Fredrick Douglas Academy in Harlem last fall. His trio includes organist Kyle Kohller and drummer Dion Parsons.

Funded through the Student Activities Finance Commission (SAFC), CU Jazz presents two free master classes during the course of the festival: the Bill Saxton Trio is scheduled for April 29 at 3 p.m. in Lincoln Hall, while Tim Ries takes his turn May 1 at 1 p.m. in Barnes Hall.

Admission will be charged for all three Barnes Hall concerts; see the calendar's music listing for ticket prices for individual concerts. A package price of $14 for students, $20 general admission is offered if all three concerts are purchased. Tickets are available at the ticket center at Clinton House (116 N. Cayuga St., 273-4497), Willard Straight Hall ticket office or online at http://www.IthacaEvents.com.

Born in Windom, Minn., Schneider arrived in New York City in 1985 (after studies at the University of Minnesota, the University of Miami and the Eastman School of Music), at which time she immediately sought out Bob Brookmeyer to study composition. At the same time, she became an assistant to Gil Evans, working on various projects with him, but most notably the film The Color of Money and music for the Gil Evans/Sting tour in 1987.

The Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra came into being in 1993, appearing at Visiones in Greenwich Village every Monday night for a stretch of five years. Subsequently, her orchestra received invitations to perform at many jazz festivals and concert halls across Europe as well as in Brazil and Macau.

Schneider's debut recording, Evanescence, was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 1995: Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance and, for its title piece, Best Instrumental Composition. Her second and third recordings, Coming About and Allegresse, also were nominated for Grammy Awards. Schneider received three Jazz Journalist Awards as Best Composer, Best Arranger and, for her orchestra, Best Big Band, and she has won many of the Downbeat and Jazztimes critics and readers polls.

Featured artist with the Jazz Ensemble II on April 30, Tim Ries is a versatile and thoughtful saxophonist and composer who has collaborated with such jazz artists as Phil Woods, Tom Harrell, Al Foster, John Patitucci, Dave Liebman, Danilo Perez, Maynard Ferguson, Red Garland and Donald Byrd. His other recording and performance credits include work with such diverse talents as Donald Fagen, Lyle Lovett, Stevie Wonder and David Lee Roth. A Grammy-award winner with the Joe Henderson Big Band for a Verve release, Ries performed the American premiere of Takashi Yoshimatsu's Cyberbird Concerto with the Brooklyn Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. A graduate of the University of North Texas and the University of Michigan, he currently is teaching saxophone and jazz combo at Rutgers and New Jersey City universities.