Audience turnout has increased dramatically since June Jazz made an inauspicious debut at Amarillo College back in 1995, but this season of free outdoor concerts is certain to enthrall far more patrons than ever before.

For the first time, June Jazz will be broadcast live by AC radio station FM90. Jazz aficionados can listen to the live concerts from 7:30 to 9 p.m. each Tuesday evening in June on either 89.9 FM or at kacvfm.org on the Web.

“We have a radio station and we have a music department, so it’s a match made in heaven,” said Jill Gibson, associate dean of the School of Creative Arts, which was established in March to nurture interdisciplinary collaboration among the various arts-related programs at AC.

“FM90 is a great way to share these very talented musicians with a far greater audience than can attend the Tuesday-night performances in person,” Gibson said. “This is another example of the fantastic benefits of our new collaborative blueprint for the School of Creative Arts.

“It is also provides excellent opportunities for our students to help set up and broadcast live events – tangible preparation for the jobs they plan to seek.”

Once again, June Jazz will take place on the south porch of the Experimental Theatre on the Washington Street Campus. If concerts past have begun in the neighborhood of 7:30 p.m. – and they have – this year’s concerts will adhere more strictly to that traditional starting time; broadcasting calls for precision.
 
This June’s concert schedule is as follows:

June 7 – Jim Laughlin with Austin Brazille
June 14 – The Martinis
June 21 – Polk Street Jazz
June 28 – Patrick Swindell

Dr. Jim Laughlin, professor of music and originator of June Jazz, will be a featured performer for this season’s first concert on June 7. Laughlin, who performs with Amarillo Symphony on both clarinet and saxophone, will appear with AC alumnus Austin Brazille, now a graduate student in jazz studies at New York University.

Laughlin says the Tuesday-night audiences have grown in recent years to about 700 folks per evening.

“It’s a family dominated crowd, and we see a lot of the same faces,” Laughlin said. “I think it’s safe to say that June Jazz has a loyal following that continues to grow. We find that gratifying, indeed.”

The free concerts were once staged in the amphitheater, known as the Pit, just south of the Concert Hall Theater. Once the crowds therein soared past about 350 or so, June Jazz was relocated to the porch at the Experimental Theatre so larger audiences could fan out in the spaciousness afforded by the pedestrian mall.

The very first version of June Jazz, Laughlin recollects, amounted to no more than his idea one spring evening in 1995 to roll a practice piano outdoors to entertain about a dozen students and friends.

Talk about syncopation.

Now the annual concert series draws hundreds and will be broadcast on 100,000-watt FM90 and streamed live on the Web.

Talk about improvisation.

And talk about June Jazz. Everyone else is; it’s one hot topic – and a very cool scene.

May 26, 2016