Summer Solstice Jazz Festival features local legends, visiting stars

The Earth will be at maximum tilt, sunlight will reach its maximum angle of incidence, and, best of all, jazz will hit maximum whee-ba-de-doo-bop Friday and Saturday at the East Lansing Summer Solstice Jazz Festival. 

Most regional jazz festivals feature a couple of high-profile guests and a supporting cast of local regulars. In East Lansing, there’s no difference. The biggest stars on the slate, those with international cachet and shelves groaning with prestigious awards, also happen to live and work here. 

Incandescent multi-instrumentalist and Michigan State University trombone professor Michael Dease (7:30 p.m. Friday) has won every DownBeat Critics Poll for trombonist of the year since the reign of Cleopatra. Just to keep you on your toes, he might whip out a baritone sax, flugelhorn, sarrusophone or whichever instrument he chooses to master next week.

Rodney Whitaker, director of MSU jazz studies and world-renowned jazz bassist, is bringing two groups: his own stellar quintet (6 p.m. Saturday) and the grand Gathering Orchestra (4:30 p.m. Saturday), a big band that blends student musicians and jazz veterans under the aegis of Detroit’s Carr Center. 

And watch for another salvo of swing from Randy Gelispie, the living drum legend who is still going strong at age 91 (7 p.m. Saturday).

These familiar faces will be joined by sax master Erena Terakubo, the latest addition to the MSU jazz studies faculty (6 p.m. Friday).

There’s a lot more to explore on the festival’s two stages, from the R&B-inflected grooves of local soul-jazz favorites 496 West (5:30 p.m. Saturday) to Latin dance machine Orquesta Ritmo (9 p.m. Saturday) and several student combos that will knock your socks — or sandals — off.

Festival artistic director Randy Napoleon, associate professor of guitar at MSU, has sweetened the pot by inviting some very special guests. Singer Melissa Morgan will team up with another New York City stalwart, trumpeter Bruce Harris, and an all-star band to play a bouquet of classic songs from multiple eras (9 p.m. Friday).

Saturday night, virtuoso musicians Warren Wolf and Chuck Redd will hold a rare “vibraphone summit,” a first in the festival’s history.

Read more about Morgan, Wolf and Redd in the stories below, and get ready to bask in solstice-sized showers of sunshine (hopefully) and jazz (for sure).

Melissa Morgan brings New York buzz to East Lansing

‘Vibing time’ as Chuck Redd, Warren Wolf meet in rare vibraphone summit