Cullowhee Gets Jazzed About Festival

Jazz will fill the air at the CulloWHEE! Arts Festival, which will take place on the campus of Western Carolina University June 14 and 15.

This is the inaugural year of the event, the idea for which came from WCU Chancellor John Bardo. The university plans to continue it on an annual basis with hopes of encompassing blues, classical, dance, theater, poetry and literature in the future.

Headliners for the festival include saxophonist David Sanborn, pianist Joe Sample, Latin-jazz group Bio Ritmo and the jazz-pop quartet Manhattan Transfer.

In an effort to bring the festival to audiences across the state, public television station UNC-TV will conduct a live broadcast of Manhattan Transfer, who will perform at 9 p.m. June 15.

"We like to do things that are based in the mountains, as well as the Piedmont and the coast," said Nicole Triche, associate producer of the broadcast. "Manhattan Transfer is a well-known act, and we thought that our viewers would enjoy seeing them."

Bill Studenc, associate director of news for WCU's Office of Public Information and a member of UNC's class of 1989, said it was an accomplishment for the university to land the broadcast.

"It's quite a coup for us to have landed this broadcast during the festival's first year, and it will help us greatly as we attempt to grow the festival over the coming years," he said.

The festival will feature every type of jazz, including smooth, salsa-flavored, cabaret, classical, contemporary and funk, Studenc said. And while Manhattan Transfer is the only group to be broadcast on UNC-TV, other festival performers are equally notable.

Sample played piano for the Jazz Crusaders before progressing as an acclaimed composer in his own right. Sanborn, one of jazz's most distinguished saxophonists, who has enjoyed decades of success as both a session player and a leader, will follow Sample.

The group Bio Ritmo was founded in 1990 and has helped to keep the salsa stylings of Puerto Rico alive and smoking.

"We owe a lot to big gigs because aside from the benefits that such exposure provides, people get to hear something other than what's on the radio, therefore breaking up that musical monopoly a lot of us hate," said Bio Ritmo co-founder Reinaldo Alvarez.

In addition to the major players, local arts, crafts and smaller musical acts including Cyndra Fyore Jazz Quartet and West End Mambo will be at the event. The festival will round out with performances by WCU's Music Technology Ensemble and the Catamount Chamber Singers.

"It's great for younger people because it gives them a sense of history of music to have some kind of understanding," Alan Paul, one of the founding members of the Manhattan Transfer, said of the festival. Paul said that while jazz music is being often passed aside in the United States, its birthplace, it has remained in style outside of the country

"Everything that's here came from someplace; the roots of their music came from someplace," he said.

On that note, Studenc said the university hopes that Cullowhee itself will change from just being someplace in the mountains to a place jazz lovers can go for a great jazz show. He said the university also hopes the experiences of the festivalgoers and the live broadcast will help put Cullowhee and its surrounding areas on the map.

"We want to help this region grow -- and grow in the right ways," Studenc said. "Economic development is important, and so are cultural and social development."

For more information about the festival, visit http://www.cullowhee

artsfest.org.

The Arts & Entertainment Editor can be reached at artsdesk@unc.edu.