Jazz to celebrate Juneteenth

Local musicians will serenade audiences with the sweet sounds of jazz Friday during a celebration of the black American influence on a truly American style of music.

That concert - Juneteenth Jazz Splash - will also celebrate the holiday Juneteenth.

Juneteenth Jazz Splash is set for 7 p.m. Friday at the Historic Yuma Theatre, 254 S. Main St. The event, sponsored by the Cultural Council of Yuma, will feature the Yuma Jazz Company and a group called the D Minors.

Tickets to the show are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. Tickets are being sold at the Yuma Art Center.

Organizers promise to put on more than just a concert. They explain that musicians will be joined on stage with a multimedia celebration of jazz icons.

“The tribute we are doing is very unique and the music will be great, but everything is going to be enhanced by the images we will be showing,” said Steven Hennig with the Yuma Jazz Company. “Those images are going to help people be able to relate more with each artist, help make this event into something than just the music.”

On the Yuma Jazz Company's playlist for that night are pieces such as “Milestones” by Miles Davis, “Equinox” by John Coltrane, “Tenor Madness” by Sonny Rollins and “Moanin'” by Art Blakey.

Hennig said the connection between black history and the evolution of jazz amounts to a world of artistic achievement in need of celebration.

“Like other early influences on jazz as it progressed, the most influential have mostly been African-Americans,” he said. “The vast majority of responsibility for the birth of jazz was with African-Americans.”

Juneteenth stands as a unique holiday because it marks the day when slavery officially ended in Texas, according to the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation.

“Juneteenth or June 19, 1865, is celebrated as the date when enslavement ended in America,” the foundation states on its website. “Although the rumors of freedom were widespread prior to this, actual emancipation did not come until General Gordon Granger came to Galveston, Texas and issued General Order No. 3, on the ‘19th of June,' almost two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.”

The D Minors, described as an “emerging jazz group,” is mostly comprised of students at Arizona Western College.

The Yuma Jazz Company is one of Yuma's best-known jazz groups. The musicians got together in 2002 with the original goal of putting together a concert for a series at St. Paul's Cultural Center. The quintet's debut album, “Shades After Dark,” was recorded in 2004 and has earned positive reviews by numerous national publications.

The group consists of Steven Hennig on trumpet and flugelhorn, Brian Carlson on tenor and alto saxophone, Carl Posch on guitar, Jon Knudtson on bass and Brandon Coz on drums.