MOUNT VERNON — The next event in Ariel-Foundation Park’s 2019 free concert series will be held Sunday, Sept. 1, and will feature Vaughn Wiester’s Famous Jazz Orchestra at 7:30 p.m. in the Schnormeier Event Center.
Vaughn Wiester’s Famous Jazz Orchestra is made up of 21 of central Ohio’s finest musicians who have come together every Monday evening on a semi-informal basis since 1997. They share their love of jazz playing their favorite big band charts. For fans, this is an opportunity to hear the sounds of Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Count Basie, and other great bands. Occasionally there are guest instrumental or vocal artists, or guest arrangers conducting their own arrangements. Many nationally known arrangers have been commissioned to write for the Famous Jazz Orchestra, including Bill Holman, Herb Harrison, Slide Hampton, Lennie Niehaus, Bill Dobbins, Paul Ferguson and Al Kiger.
Members of the orchestra have played with the orchestras of Glenn Miller, Guy Lombardo, Woody Herman, Mel Lewis, Tommy Dorsey, Ralph Marterie, and Buddy Rich, as well as with Columbus bands including those of Al Waslohn, Doc Everhart, Bruno Masdea, Chuck Selby, Rick Brunetto, and with the Columbus Jazz Orchestra. Many members have been on local university jazz faculties.
Vaughn is a former university jazz instructor, a jazz arranger and former trombonist with the Woody Herman orchestra. He has arranged for Woody, for the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, and for Terry Waldo’s Ragtime Orchestra. His voluminous library of jazz charts and CDs is one of the largest in the United States. In February 2012, he was selected to give the pre-concert lecture for Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra’s Stan Kenton Centennial Concert.
Food vendors, open an hour prior to concert start time, include Squeals on Wheels, Kent’s Cones, BH Coffee and Domino’s Pizza.
For information, visit www.arielfoundationpark.org.
