Mammoth JazzFest’s stated mission includes “refreshing, renewing and reinventing jazz.” It’s fitting, then, that this year the festival invited the UCLA Global Jazz Ensemble, a group of six talented jazz students from the Herb Alpert School of Music’s Global Jazz Studies program, to perform. The ensemble arrived in the Village at Mammoth for the free summer festival on June 21-22, 2019.
“Playing in the woods is always a different type of thing. It’s very euphoric, very in-the-moment,” said pianist Kimiko Daniels. “People in Mammoth were so nice! The first day of summer was the second day of the festival. It was the perfect way to start the summer.”
Featuring Daniels (piano), Isabel Dobrev (bass), Jules Gilliam (trumpet), Ennis Harris (saxophone), Brendan Kersey-Wilson (trombone), and Lorenzo Siciliano (drums), the students performed sets on both days of the festival, presenting a varied repertoire under the direction of acclaimed trombonist Duane Benjamin, a lecturer in the Global Jazz Studies program.
The Global Jazz Studies program is designed for undergraduate students seeking careers as jazz performers, producers, teachers, and/or jazz scholars. Students are encouraged to think globally about the capacity of jazz to transform the musical and political world it engages while building upon UCLA’s strong jazz studies and world music foundation. Learn more.
