Nearly two dozen high school jazz musicians performed in three groups at the new Bake's Place in Bellevue on the closing night of this year's Bellevue Jazz Festival. The three groups were comprised of young musicians selected from ten area high schools and were mentored by professional jazz musicians. Highlights from their concert will air on Jazz Northwest on Sunday, July 8 at 1 PM PDT on 88.5 KPLU and stream at kplu.org.
The Bellevue Jazz Festival and the KPLU School of Jazz teamed up to develop the program and provide a unique opportunity for some of the area's outstanding student musicians to prepare a festival concert under the mentorship of professional jazz musicians and teachers. The mentors this year were Steve Korn, Anton Schwartz and Jim Sisko. Each group prepared a short program of challenging music in a concentrated period of time and presented it before a full house at Bake's Place in Bellevue which opened just before this year's festival. The event coincided with the release of the 2012 KPLU School of Jazz CD featuring area high school jazz bands, the eighth in the annual series.