61st Annual 3-Day Clark College Jazz Festival Coming January 30

VANCOUVER, WA — Clark College hosts the 61st Annual Clark College Jazz Festival in three full days of big band jazz on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, January 30 – February 1, 2025 in the Gaiser Student Center, 1933 Fort Vancouver Way, Vancouver WA 98663. Admission is $10 per day.  Clark College students and children under 12 accompanied by an adult will be admitted free of charge.

Sixty middle and high school jazz ensembles from throughout Washington and Oregon are scheduled to perform in this year’s competition with trophies presented to the top three jazz ensembles for middle schools and A through AAAA division high schools.  Individual outstanding musician awards will also be presented at the end of each division’s preliminary competitions.  At the end of Saturday evening, the Dale Beacock Memorial Sweepstakes Award will be presented to one outstanding band selected from the entire festival. 

Preliminary competitions for the 2025 festival will begin on Thursday (Jan 30) with middle schools performing from 8 am to noon and the Division A high school bands competing from 1:45-4:45 pm. The Finals competition for Middle School and Division A begins at 7:00 p.m. The AA Division competition runs from 9 am – 4:30 pm on Friday (Jan 31) and the AAA and AAAA jazz bands take the stage on Saturday (Feb 1) beginning at 8:00 a.m. Finals competitions will begin at 7 pm on Friday and Saturday evenings ending with the trophy presentations.

The Clark College Jazz Bands, under the direction of Festival Director Dr. Doug Harris, will perform at following times:

Jazz Band II – Thursday, Jan 30, 4:40 pm

Jazz Band I – Thursday, Jan 30, 8:30 pm

Jazz Band I – Friday, Jan 31, 7:45 pm

Jazz Band I – Saturday, Feb 1, 12:20 pm

The 2024 Sweepstakes Band, Bothell High School Jazz Band, under the direction of Phil Dean, will hold the spotlight on Saturday evening at 8:30 pm. 

A special ticketed fundraising concert by the Portland based JUJUBA (jujuba.org) will be on Wednesday, (Jan 29) at 7:30 pm to kick off the 61st Festival celebration.  The Clark College Jazz Band I opens the performance.  Only 400 seats.  Tickets $20 at the door (cash, check, cc).  more info at 360-992-2662 or sjwilliams@clark.edu.

Jujuba is a 10-piece Afrobeat and Juju band features Nigerian Master Talking Drum Legen, Nojeem Lasisi, a world-class West African and Cuban percussion section, a blazing horn section, and a funky electric rhythm section. Lasisi ranks among the world’s elite talking drum players. Nojeem was given his first drum at age four by his father, also a master drummer, who handed down to Nojeem its powerful language. As a member of Nigerian superstar King Sunny Ade’s group, the African Beats, Nojeem toured the world and appears on numerous recordings with King Sunny, including “Seven Degrees North” and “Odu”. Marc Silverman (keys) and Ethan Flaherty (guitar) moved to Portland in 1999 with a driven focus to start a band built on a foundation of West African drumming. Their studies of Ghanaian drumming, and Marc’s travels in Africa listening to and learning rhythms in Tanzania and Ghana, inspired an idea in Marc to apply these rhythms to bass, keyboard, and guitar parts in an electric rhythm section. After playing with hundreds of musicians during their first few years in Portland, Marc and Ethan met percussionist Tobias Manthey, who brought them together with his teacher, Nojeem Lasisi, for the first rehearsal of what would become Jujuba.

For complete information about the Clark College Music Department concerts featuring the orchestra, band, jazz ensemble, and choirs, please see http://www.clark.edu/campus-life/arts-events/music/jazz_festival/index.php.

The History of the Clark College Jazz Festival

The heritage of the Clark College Jazz Festival dates back to 1962 when Hud­son’s Bay H.S. band director, Don Cammack, began organizing a one-day high school stage band invitational for schools from Clark and Skamania coun­ties. Organized by the Vancouver and Evergreen public schools, Fort Vancou­ver H.S. and Evergreen H.S took turns hosting the festival each year. Sponsors of the festival included Southwest Washington Music Association and Lower Columbia River Music Educators Association. In the early years, the trophies were made by middle school band director, Jack Ager, creatively construct­ing musician figures from miscellaneous hardware and car parts! In 1970, Dale Beacock, then the band director at both Fort Vancouver H.S. and Clark Col­lege, held the invitational “Clark Stage Band Contest” for the first time at its current home, Clark College. This inaugural event hosted 17 high school jazz bands with preliminary competitions held in what was then known as the Gaiser Hall dining area, with finals in the gymnasium. Dale’s vision of a competitive jazz showcase for schools throughout Washington and greater Portland pro­moted the growth of the festival and in 1971 the festival grew to 32 bands held over two days on Friday and Saturday. In 1976 the number of participating bands grew to 52, welcoming bands from Oregon and Idaho. In 1985, Chuck Ramsey took over the reigns as Festival Coordinator successfully organizing the festival for the next 22 years. Chuck’s achievements bringing consistency in the operations of the festival and increased student involvement set the ground­work for the educational enhancement, leadership, teamwork, and a sense of ownership the Clark student volunteers experience today. In 2008, Richard Inouye came onboard as Festival Director. His professional and educational experience has brought a new dynamic to the festival by encouraging a focus on jazz education and utilizing technology to promote community awareness, public support, and streamline festival operations. In 2012, the Clark College Jazz Festival celebrated its 50th Golden Anniversary. Highlights of this milestone included the Clark College Alumni Band directed by Chuck Ramsey which fea­tured Clark band alumni from three generations of Clark band directors. Dale Beacock and Chuck were also presented Legacy Sweepstakes Awards for their historic contributions to the festival. In 2013, the festival went international welcoming two bands from Tsawwassen, British Columbia! Today the Annual Clark College Jazz Fes­tival welcomes 60 middle and high school jazz ensembles, over 1,200 student jazz musicians to the campus, and over 3,000 people to the Vancouver com­munity throughout the three-day event.

Dr. Doug Harris is the Director of Bands at Clark College since Fall 2018, after serving as Assistant Director of Bands at Western Kentucky University, and Director of Bands at Santa Clara University and Southern Utah University. He also enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a high school band director in Florida. Dr. Harris received his Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Florida, his Master of Arts and Doctor of Arts from the University of Northern Colorado. Doug is active clinician and adjudicator in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Missouri, Colorado, Utah, California and Washington, is a freelance trumpet player and has worked on the brass staff of the Madison Scouts, Sacramento Mandarins, Teal Sound and Suncoast Sound Drum and Bugle Corps. He is active as a composer, arranger and transcriber and is published in the Grand Mesa Music catalog.