Ella Fitzgerald festival hits the big time

BY SAM MCDONALD

April 4, 2006
The Ella Fitzgerald Music Festival, now in its ninth year, is looking all grown up. How so?

First off, it's a third bigger.

This year's event at Christopher Newport University has swelled to include a fourth night of world-class music. A beefed-up Wednesday concert will feature the critically acclaimed singer Kurt Elling.

Secondly, there's the marquee strength of this year's headliner, Branford Marsalis. The saxophonist, who performs at the Saturday night finale, is part of the nation's first family of jazz music. His father Ellis and brother Wynton are among the most popular and respected jazz players in the country.

Big names are nothing new to the festival. It has featured Chick Corea, Joshua Redman, Sonny Rollins and Diana Krall in years past. But an appearance by Marsalis - who has recorded and performed with rock standouts including Sting and Bruce Hornsby - gives the festival more popular punch. At least it should.

Finally, the Ella Fitzgerald Music Festival moves into a grander physical space for 2006. Last year's edition took place at the 440-seat theater inside the Ferguson Center for the Arts. This year, the only show happening in that theater is Wednesday's kickoff. The other three performances are inside the Ferguson Center's much larger 1,700-seat concert hall.

It's a big step up from the festival's beginnings in the tiny and unpretentious Gaines Theatre at CNU.

Here's a closer look at the festival's four headlining concerts.

Kurt Elling with the CNU Jazz Ensembles, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Music & Theatre Hall, Ferguson Center for the Arts. Tickets are $20.

Chicago native Kurt Elling's brand of scat singing was surely influenced by Ella Fitzgerald, so he's a natural choice for the festival. Having developed his own style in the clubs of the Windy City - including the legendary Green Mill - Elling emerged as a creative and unpredictable presence in vocal jazz. For example, he began his 2001 album "Flirting with Twilight" by singing a Charlie Haden bass solo.

Eddie Palmieri and La Perfecta II with Tiempo Libre, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Concert Hall, Ferguson Center for the Arts. Tickets are $20, $30 and $40.

A seven-time Grammy Award winner, Palmieri is described as one of the greatest Latin piano players on the road today. He went professional in 1955 and formed his influential band La Perfecta in 1961. Palmieri's is noted for bringing the piano styles of McCoy Tyner, Thelonious Monk and others into a Latin music context. Tiempo Libre is a Miami-based group that plays high-energy blend of Latin jazz and Cuban timba music,

Patti Austin and the Count Basie Orchestra, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Concert Hall, Ferguson Center for the Arts. Tickets are $20, $30 and $40.

Austin is best known as pop and R&B singer, but she's always loved jazz. As a child performer, she was a protégé of Dinah Washington and Sammy Davis Jr. As a studio pro, she's sung countless jingles as well as for sessions by Quincy Jones, George Benson and Paul Simon. Her duet with James Ingram "Baby, Come to Me," was a No. 1 pop hit in 1982. More recently, Austin's been indulging her jazz side. In 2002, she released "For Ella," a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.

Branford Marsalis, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Concert Hall, Ferguson Center for the Arts. Tickets are $20, $30 and $40.

The oldest of Ellis Marsalis' jazz playing sons, Marsalis learned from Art Blakey, Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis before striking out on his own. Jazz purists howled when he joined Sting's post-Police band. But Marsalis continued to chart his own course. For a few years, he served as musical director for Jay Leno's "Tonight Show." In 1994, his Buckshot LeFonque project mixed jazz, hip-hop, blues and rock with contributions from Albert Collins, Victor Wooten, Nils Lofgren and poet Maya Angelou. Branford Marsalis' most recent disc, "Eternal," was released in 2004.