The USF Jazz Ensemble I will offer their final spring concert of the 2023-2024 school year on April 17, 2024, at 7:30 p.m. in the USF Concert Hall.

 The concert will celebrate the retirement of current USF Director of Jazz Studies, Jack Wilkins.  Composer Ross Strauser, who directs the USF Jazz Ensemble II, received a commission to write a brand new big band work featuring Jack Wilkins as soloist on Tenor Saxophone.

 Strauser used the classic jazz standard “Old Black Magic” as inspiration to create this new composition entitled “Old Jack Magic.”

 The concert will also include other jazz classics from the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Quincy Jones Band, Buddy Rich Band, as well as a piece Bob Brookmeyer wrote for the Mel Lewis Big Band. The program will also include a Latin Jazz feature entitled “Cubauza” by noted NYC composer Michael Philip Mossman

 Come help us celebrate Jack Wilkins and everything that he has done for Jazz at USF and the countless students he has guided along the way.