Mark your calendars! On Saturday, February 8, 2025, youth jazz combos from around the region will gather at Sacramento State University for our annual youth band festival. The one day event will feature jazz artist Gunhild Carling as Guest Clinician. Applications are still open for elementary, middle school, high school and college student bands, whether from a school band program, a jazz society, or self-directed. For more information visit https://teagardenjazzfestival.org/
One of the programs of SacJEF is our annual presentation of $500 vouchers for private music lessons. Beginning in August, students submit applications that include short essays on their background and involvement in music, accompanied by notes of reference from their current school band teachers. The applications are evaluated using a points system, and twenty recipients are selected. The winners receive the payment voucher as well as a certificate. SacJef Volunteers will present this year’s awards to twenty-one lucky winners on Sunday, November 17th, 2pm – 4pm at Tim’s Music, 6818 Fair Oaks Blvd in Carmichael. A big thank you to Tim’s Music for the use of their performance room!
Celebrating TNT!
SacJEF’s youth honor jazz band program started in 1989, and has been growing stronger every year since. Every fall local high school students audition and then rehearse weekly during the school year, performing wherever and whenever schedules permit. The 2023-24 group of young jazz musicians has been particularly outstanding, and now that the school year is over, some of these talented kids are heading off to college. A whole new group will assemble in the fall.
TNT will close out the year with a special backyard performance on June 13th, from 6:00 to 8:30 PM. Seating is limited at this event, and tickets are $25 per person. All proceeds will benefit the next TNT band!
To order your ticket, follow this link.
The 14th annual Up Close & Personal concert fundraiser is set for Thursday, Dec 7th, at the Sacramento Yacht Club, and will feature the talents of vocalist Molly Ryan and reed man Nate Ketner.
Order tickets for the event here.
Molly Ryan is one of the most sought-after vocalists on the NY jazz scene, and has performed at such prestigious Manhattan venues as the Café Carlyle, the Waldorf Astoria, Rainbow Room, Birdland, Iridium, The New York Historical Society Museum and The Players’ Club. She has performed alongside such prominent jazz artists as Randy Reinhart, Jon-Erik Kellso, Bria Skonberg, Dan Barrett, Mark Shane, Rossano Sportiello, as well as with the preeminent 1920s-style orchestra, Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks.
Molly’s silvery voice and lush, elegant vocal style evoke the big band singers of the 1930s and breathe new life into familiar old standards.
Saxophone/clarinet player Nate Ketner is one of the best traditional jazz reed players in America. He has been playing the woodwinds professionally since he was 19 years old, and has developed the ability to authentically play many different styles, with an emphasis on jazz from the 20’s to the 50’s.
This annual event benefits the Teagarden Jazz Festival for Young Musicians, held each February in conjunction with the Jazz Studies program at Sacramento State University.
The prestigious Monterey Jazz Festival created the Next Generation Women in Jazz Combo in 2019 to feature top high school women jazz players from across the country. Only six students are chosen each year, and this year two of them are from Sacramento and the SacJEF programs.
CapRadio’s Excellence in Jazz host Avery Jeffry recently sat down with the two students, Paloma Cobbs-Silva and Salome Ospina, to discuss their journey to Monterey. Both students have participated in the Teagarden Jazz Camp and TNT, programs of the Sacramento Jazz Education Foundation, and credit these programs with instilling their love for playing traditional jazz.
50 jazz musicians comprising six local bands will gather on the banks of the American River for this year’s big event:
Saturday March 25 th, 2025 – 12 p.m. – 5 p.m
Drakes – The Barn – 985 Riverfront St
West Sacramento, CA 95691.
Headliners are Element Brass Band and Peter Petty—both Sammie award winning acts—plus Crescent Katz, Dirty Chops Band, and youth bands TNT, Sea Monkeys, Tower Bridge Trad, and more.
The all ages musical extravaganza is a fundraiser to help send deserving students to the Teagarden summer jazz camp. There is no cover charge, but a suggested $20-per-person donation will help bring the gift of jazz to budding young musicians. As the world’s oldest musical camp focusing specifically on early jazz, Teagarden has a long list of celebrity alumni from pop star Carly Rae Jepsen to jazz singer and trumpeter Bria Skonberg.
Camp instructors are themselves highly accomplished musicians who have played with some of the biggest names around the world. In Sacramento, it’s hard to find a jazz band that does not have at least one or two musicians who have taken part in the Teagarden camp as either an instructor, a one-time student, or both.
The camp is an annual production of the Sacramento Jazz Education Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is to preserve and promote early jazz. The camp runs two weeks in the summer and is located in the Sierra foothills.
More information on the Camp, including how to register to attend, is at sacjazzcamp.org.