May 26, 2026 11:08 AM
Sonny Rollins Passes Away at 95
Sonny Rollins, the iconic saxophonist, composer and improviser whose career stretched from the origins of bebop to 21st…
From Feb. 23–26, Moscow, Idaho, will serve as the center of the jazz universe, as the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival celebrates its 38th anniversary. A solid lineup of artists perform nightly at the University of Idaho, including the likes of Russell Malone, Benny Green, Roy Hargrove, Jane Monheit, Monty Alexander, Randy Brecker, Jeff Hamilton, John Clayton, Lou Rawls and the Lionel Hampton New York Big Band.
But this festival is less about the international jazz stars who descend upon northwest Idaho than the approximately 17,000 junior high, high school and college students from across the United States, Canada and even some international groups that come to compete and learn at master classes and seminars.
The first University of Idaho Jazz Festival in 1968 was a single-day event consisting of 15 student groups and one jazz artist featured in an evening concert. The festival now runs four days and features seven concerts. Some of the jazz greats who have performed at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival include Ella Fitzgerald, Gerry Mulligan, Dizzy Gillespie, Dianne Reeves, Stan Getz, Carmen McRae, Diana Krall, Wynton Marsalis and Sarah Vaughan and of course, Hampton and his New York Big Band.
For a complete lineup of the festival, go to www.jazz.uidaho.edu
Onstage, Rollins would move about restlessly, thrusting his tenor sax in the air as he blew.
May 26, 2026 11:08 AM
Sonny Rollins, the iconic saxophonist, composer and improviser whose career stretched from the origins of bebop to 21st…
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