WHERE: Historic Moorefields Estate, 2201 Moorefields Road, Hillsborough.
WHEN: 12-6 p.m. Sept. 25.
WHO: In order of appearance, Ed Moon Trio (noon), Magic of African Rhythms (12:35 p.m.), Sawyer-Goldberg Jazz (1:10 p.m.), Laura Ridgeway (2:p.m.), Equinox (3 p.m.), Lois Deloatch (4 p.m.), John Brown Quintet (5 p.m.).
SPONSOR: The Hillsborough Arts Council.
ADMISSION: General admission is $10 in advance at The Hillsborough Arts Council and The Sportsplex; and $15 at the door.
Billy Strayhorn website: http://www.billystrayhorn.com
From staff reports
HILLSBOROUGH -- After a one-year hiatus, a popular jazz festival will return in a new package to The Historic Moorefields Estate along N.C., 86 a few miles from historic Hillsborough.
Lois Deloatch, whose recording "Hymn to Freedom: Homage to Oscar Peterson" was named by JazzTimes critic Owen Cordle as one of the top 10 CDs of 2008, will be among the acts appearing. Returning to the festival stage will be the John Brown Quintet, featuring the band's namesake, bassist John Brown, director of the jazz program and associate professor of the practice of music at Duke University.
This year's theme is "Celebrating Billy Strayhorn," to honor the jazz legend. Strayhorn is best known for his successful collaboration lasting nearly three decades with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington. What is less well known is that he has family history in Hillsborough.
Formerly known as the Cool Jazz Festival during a five-year run, the event brought a diverse mix of music fans and artists together in Orange County.
The outdoor jazz festival, under the guidance of James Hester, was sponsored by the Orange County Parks and Recreation Department. By 2008, it was drawing more than 5,000 attendees. But due to a decrease in funding for the Recreation Department, the festival did not take place in 2009.
Because of the contribution the festival made to our community, the Hillsborough Arts Council is bringing this event back to Orange County with a new name: The Hillsborough Jazz Festival.
William Thomas "Billy" Strayhorn, Duke Ellington's longtime collaborator, was among the most influential figures in American jazz. A versatile composer, arranger, and pianist, Strayhorn joined Ellington's orchestra at age 22 in 1939 and worked with the bandleader the rest of his life. Ellington publicly acknowledged the central role Strayhorn played in his success, writing the band's theme "Take the A Train" and penning popular and widely recorded songs such as "Lush Life" and "Satin Doll."
Strayhorn was a formative influence on an entire generation of musicians. Living in New York City most of his adult life, he was actively involved in the civil rights movement and was a personal friend of Martin Luther King Jr.
Although Strayhorn was born in Dayton, Ohio, his roots ran deep in Orange County and, importantly, his frequent stays in Hillsborough as a boy were essential to his musical development.
His father and grandfather both worked at the Eno Mill. His grandparents, who owned a piano, lived in a house (now gone) at the corner of Margaret Lane and Hillsborough Avenue.
Returning with his mother and siblings to North Carolina from Ohio regularly from age 5, Strayhorn attended his first year of school while in Hillsborough; a classmate remembered him as "small and bright."
He spent breaks and summers in North Carolina through his early teen years (by then the family had moved to Pittsburgh) and often took the train to visit an uncle in Durham.
Biographer David Hajdu contends that North Carolina became the young man's spiritual home, the place he was introduced to music. Initially, gospel tunes drew him to the piano. He often wandered through the slave cemetery across from his boyhood home and walked along the Eno River.
When Strayhorn died of cancer at 51, only one person spoke at the public memorial. It was Duke Ellington, and he began his loving remarks by describing the friend, ally and creative alter ego he'd long ago nicknamed "Swee' Pea" as "the biggest human being who ever lived." Ellington said his friend "had no aspirations to enter into any kind of competition, yet the legacy he leaves, his oeuvre, will never be less than the ultimate on the highest plateau of culture."
The jazz festival features lawn seating. Parking is free. Festival attendees are asked not to bring recording devices, animals, tents, grills, coolers or alcohol.
Cold water will be available free of charge. Grilled foods, soft drinks, beer and wine will be available for sale. Proceeds help support the Hillsborough Arts Council and our cultural event programming. The Hillsborough Arts Council is a volunteer nonprofit organization.
