• Bebop (bop, rebop), a style of jazz developed by Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and others in the mid-1940s, was a radical departure from the swing music of the 1930s by altering the rhythmic interplay of the instruments, using more complex melodies and chords and favoring small ensemble playing over big band performances.

• Black musicians playing in brass bands in the 1880s and thereafter in New Orleans were important in the development of jazz. Playing at a slow tempo as they accompanied a funeral processional on its way to the graveyard, they played “jazzy” music on the return journey encouraging the mourners to rejoice by dancing and singing in order to celebrate the life of the deceased.

• Improvisation, the hallmark of jazz, offers the player the opportunity to spontaneously create a musical composition. Inherent in improvisation is the risk that a mistake will be made by the player, but it is this aspect of jazz that many feel gives the music its unique vitality. Charlie Parker is generally considered to be the greatest improviser in jazz history.

• Barbara Morrison will be appearing in Vail over the Labor Day Weekend. A vocalist known for her impassioned approach to the blues, soul and gospel tunes, she has an incredible voice with a two-and-a-half octave range. A great story teller, Barbara has appeared at jazz festivals throughout the world

• Thelonious Sphere Monk was a pianist with an unusual playing technique and a composer of advanced compositions. Initially many musicians branded him as crazy. His strange name, weird hats and introverted nature didn’t help, but slowly he and his music were accepted and he gained much respect, ultimately appearing on the cover of Time magazine.

• Diana Krall is the reigning diva of the jazz world. Born on an island off the coast of British Columbia, she paid her dues playing piano and singing from the early 1980s until her career began to take off in 1999 when she recorded When I Look in Your Eyes. A blockbuster hit, she received a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance.

• Jazz has been a fertile ground for the development of slang. A word like “jive” could be used by jazz musicians in many different ways - to refer to a weird form of speech (noun), to someone who tried to trick or fool you (verb), or to someone or something that was phoney or fake (adjective). On the other hand “bad” had only one meaning-good.

• The Mile High Chapter Choir will be appearing in Vail over the Labor Day Weekend. The Choir is a part of the Gospel Music Workshop of America, which is the largest gospel music organization in the world with over 300,000 international members. This will be the third time they will have appeared in Vail at the very popular Sunday morning Gospel Prayer Meetin’.

• Jazz has an aural tradition of listening and then trying to play what you heard. When jazz records became available in the 1920s, musicians slowed down the speed of the records and painstakingly wrote down the notes played in a process called transcription. Instead of trying to remember what they heard in a live performance, they were able to practice what was actually played.

• Frank Sinatra got his start as a singer with the big bands of Harry James and Tommy Dorsey in the late 30s and early 40s. Often associated with people in the world of jazz, he recorded albums with jazz greats Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Even though he was more a “pop singer” than a jazz singer, his technique of phrasing lyrics was the epitome of jazz.

• Ann Patterson will be appearing in Vail over the Labor Day Weekend. Known for her hard swinging tenor playing, she has played with many of the greatest musicians of our time in a career that has spanned 25 years. Ann also leads Maiden Voyage, the acclaimed 17-piece all-female jazz orchestra, she founded almost 15 years ago.

• Dave Brubeck is a jazz pianist who pioneered playing jazz concerts on college campuses in the 1950s. His quartet was extremely popular and by 1954 he was on the cover of Time magazine. In 1959, his album Take Five explored unconventional time signatures (e.g. 5/4 instead of the standard 4 beats per measure) and was the first million seller jazz instrumental album.

• In jazz slang “shedding”, (short for “woodshedding”) means to practice playing your instrument. The term derives from the custom of early jazz musicians taking their “axe” (slang for instrument) to the woodshed to do some serious work.

• John Clayton will be performing in Vail over the Labor Day Weekend as well as teaching the week before at the Vail Jazz Workshop. John plays the bass and is a dedicated jazz musician, but he also has played classical music and was the principal bassist for the Amsterdam Philharmonic for over 5 years.

• William “Count” Basie was one of the most popular bandleaders in jazz history. He lead the band from the piano, where he played very few notes and it was said, “The less he played, the more he conveyed.” The band was known for playing in the “Kansas City” style - orchestral jazz based on the blues with a very strong rhythmic drive.

• Matt Wilson will be appearing in Vail over the Labor Day Weekend. He was voted Drummer of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association and the #1 Rising Star Drummer in the Down Beat International Jazz Critics Poll in 2003.

• Sarah “Sassy” Vaughan won an amateur contest as a teenager in 1942 and shortly thereafter she began singing with the big bands of Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine. Influenced by the emerging jazz style known as bebop, she incorporated it into her phrasing and was also a masterful scat singer, but it was her wonderful voice that ultimately made her an international star.

• Each year the VJF organizes the Vail Jazz Workshop, an intensive learning experience for some of the most dedicated and gifted high school musicians in the country who receive scholarships to study and perform in Vail. The students are known as the Vail Jazz Workshop All-Stars and they will perform throughout Labor Day Weekend as part of the 10th Annual Vail Jazz Party.

• Reuben Wilson will be appearing in Vail over the Labor Day Weekend. Reuben has been playing the organ since he was a kid. He first attracted international attention in the late ‘60s with a series of soul jazz albums for Blue Note Records and in the late’80s Reuben was hailed as one of the Godfathers of the ‘acid-jazz” movement when his classic album “Gotta Get Your Own” was rediscovered by a whole new generation of listeners.

• In the early days of jazz, it was not the drummer who was the timekeeper, but the bass player, by playing a note on every beat. The bass replaced the tuba, also used in early jazz as the timekeeper, and has been the butt of jokes ever since. Jazz musicians are fond of saying the only difference between a bass and a cello is the bass burns longer.

• The invention of the base-drum pedal and cymbal pedal in the late 19th century allowed drummers the opportunity to sit down and play many instruments at the same time. The modern drum set (also know as a trap set or drum kit) allows the drummer to play the bass drum and hi-hat cymbals with his feet, freeing his hands to play a multitude of drums and cymbals.

• The Vail Jazz Party carries on a forty-one-year tradition of jazz in Colorado over Labor Day Weekend that began with the first Colorado Jazz Party organized by Dick Gibson in 1963. The “Party”, a mix of group performances and jam sessions, was the first event of its kind to be held annually and in 1977 it was the subject of the film The Great Rocky Mountain Jazz Party.

• Jazz players have competed for recognition since the beginning of the art form. Buddy Bolden was the first “king” of the cornet followed by Joe “King” Oliver with other supreme rulers to follow - Paul Whiteman, the King of Jazz and Benny Goodman, the King of Swing. With so many kings reigning at the same time, the rest of the royal court was quickly filled with a Duke (Ellington) and a Count (Basie).

• Ferdinand J. “Jelly Roll Morton” La Menthe, a Creole born in New Orleans in 1890, was a ragtime piano player in the bordellos of New Orleans. Besides being a musician he was also a pimp, gambler and pool shark. Credited with being the first important jazz composer, he fused ragtime with the black culture that was evolving in New Orleans into the beginnings of jazz

• Dena DeRose will be appearing in Vail over the Labor Day Weekend. Dena is a triple threat – pianist, vocalist and composer. Carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis almost ended her career. Not being able to play the piano for almost two years, she discovered she had a talent for singing and built her career as a vocalist. Having fully recovered, she now leads her own piano trio and accompanies herself.

• Storyville, the red light district of New Orleans in the late 19th century, was where musicians performed several styles of music that would ultimately become part of the “gumbo” called jazz. Storyville became so associated with jazz that several jazz record companies and nightclubs to signify their connection to the music adopted the name.

• John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie earned his nickname because of his clownish behavior, but was one of the most influential jazz players of all time, pioneering bebop jazz and creating the fusion of Afro-Cuban music with jazz. He played a trumpet with the bell pointed upwards - someone fell on his instrument creating the unique look - and he discovered he liked the sound.

• The King of Swing, Benny Goodman, was a virtuoso clarinet player (classical and jazz) and the bandleader credited with popularizing swing. In the mid-1930s he was the most popular musician in American. The first major White jazz musician to integrate his band, Goodman’s band is said to have been the first jazz ensemble to be presented in a concert setting (Carnegie Hall in 1938).

• Rahsaan Roland Kirk, blind at the age of two, played the bugle, trumpet and most woodwind instruments. He favored the tenor saxophone and was famous for simultaneously playing three at the same time, using a technique known as circular breathing. In addition, he played many other instruments including homemade inventions, the trumpophone and slidesophone.

• Dave Valentin will be appearing in Vail over Labor Day Weekend. Voted Best Flutist by the readers of Jazziz Magazine for 8 years in a row, he is a prolific recording artist. Noted as one of the preeminent Latin jazz players, he started playing percussion at age 5 and began performing professionally at 11, but it wasn’t until he was 16 that he took up the flute.

• Although the harmonica is often associated with the blues, it is rarely heard in jazz performances, but Belgian musician Toots Thielemans has been the reigning king of the jazz harmonica for the past 50 years and is also known for his virtuosity as a whistler.

• The “blues” are not only a state of mind, but also a formal structure for the music (12-bar blues). Traceable to the 16th century description of a melancholic mood as the “Blue Devils”, the word was not associated with music until the beginning of the 20th century. Blues music is widely viewed as one of the key components that influenced the development of jazz.

• Charlie Parker, alto sax player, was one of the most influential jazz musicians of all time and a living legend when he died in 1955 at the age of 35, due to drugs and alcohol. A principal force behind the development of bebop jazz, he is considered to be the most important jazz improviser on any instrument. Known as “Bird”, his life was chronicled in a film of the same name.

• Theater organs were introduced by the Wurlitzer Co. when silent films became popular and this lead to their use by jazz musicians in the late 1920s. However, it was the invention of the electronic Hammond organ in 1935 that really accelerated the trend due to the relative portability of the instrument.

• The saxophone, one of the mainstays of jazz and pop music for over three-quarters of a century, was invented by Adolphe Sax, a Belgian musician/inventor who in 1842 attached a mouthpiece with a reed to an “ophicleide, a brass trombone like instrument, and then adding keys to create a unique instrument that was rarely played for the next three-quarters of a century.

• Appearing in Vail over Labor Day Weekend, the VJF Workshop Alumni Band is composed of Gerald Clayton, piano (2002), David Wong, bass (1999), Obed Calvaire, drums (1998), Tim Green, alto (1998) and Keyon Harrold, trumpet (1997). All were in high school when they attended past Vail Jazz Workshops, now live in New York and are professional musicians.

• Hilton Ruiz will be appearing in Vail over Labor Day Weekend. One of the leading figures in Afro-Cuban music, he will be playing piano and leading his band, the Hilton Ruiz Latin Jazz-All-Stars. A child prodigy who performed at Carnegie Hall when he was 8, Hilton was a seasoned professional before he was 20.

• Charles Joseph “Buddy” Bolden was the first “king” of the cornet in New Orleans, with many to follow - King Oliver and Louis Armstrong to name a few. A professional musician in the early 1900s, he was the best-known musician in New Orleans. Unfortunately, no known recordings of Buddy survived and his career was cut short by mental illness.

• Use of a mute to modify the timbre of a brass instrument is a technique used in jazz. In the early 1900s, players initially used their hands over the bells of their instruments, but this technique was quickly followed by use of the rubber cup from a sink plunger. Thereafter, many types of mutes were invented that could be placed in the bell of a horn and removed at will.

• Ella Fitzgerald, one of the greatest jazz vocalists of all time, wanted to be a dancer. When she got her first break to dance at the famous Apollo Theater in an amateur competition at the age of 17, she panicked and without any preparation sang instead, winning the competition. Within a couple of years she was on her way to worldwide fame and a career spanning 50 years.

• Billie Holiday, one of the most famous jazz vocalists of all time, was jailed at 14 for working in a whorehouse. A heroin addict, she died in 1959 at the age of 44. Lover Man, Good Morning Heartache and God Bless the Child were some of the songs that made “Lady Day” famous. Diana Ross stared in the fictionalize account of her life in Lady Sings the Blues in 1972.

• In the early 1900’s as jazz was evolving, the clarinet was adopted by many players because of its ability to be played in so many expressive ways, e.g. a deep woody sound or a whining or crying sound. Famous early players were Johnny Dodds and Sidney Bechet, but it was Benny Goodman (the King of Swing) and Artie Shaw in the 1930s that really put the clarinet on the map.

• Peter Bernstein will be appearing in Vail over Labor Day Weekend. One of the most tasteful jazz guitarists of the day, he plays with such diverse talents as Joshua Redman, Joe Lovano, Roy Hargrove and Dr. Lonnie Smith. Captivated by the ragtime music of Scot Joplin, he started playing the piano at an early age, but switched to the guitar at 13 after hearing Jimi Hendrix and B.B. King, teaching himself to play by ear.

• Born (in 1900?) in New Orleans, Louis Armstrong (known as Pops, Satchmo and Sachelmouth) became by nearly all accounts the most important jazz musician the world has ever known. Starting on the cornet and moving to the trumpet, he is credited with inventing just about every important early jazz technique on a horn, as well as inventing the style of singing known as scat.

• Bill Cunliffe will be appearing in Vail over the Labor Day Weekend as well as teaching the week before at the Vail Jazz Workshop. Bill somehow manages a career that encompasses performing, arranging (he was recently nominated for a Grammy Award for one of his arrangements), writing (both jazz and classical music), teaching and publishing. Bill was the winner of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Award.

• Riley King is probably the best-known blues sing in the world. He began his career as a disc jockey on a Memphis radio station where he played his guitar and sang requests from listeners. When he started to perform in local clubs he was initially billed as “The Beale Street Blues Boy” and that nickname got shortened to “Blues Boy” and ultimately to B.B.

• Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, one of the most famous jazz musicians (piano) and bandleaders of all time, wrote over 2,000 musical compositions - popular songs and instrumental pieces, suites, film scores and scared works. Many of his jazz tunes have become “standards” - Mood Indigo, Sophisticated Lady, C-Jam Blues and Satin Doll are just a few.

• Terell Stafford will be appearing in Vail over Labor Day Weekend as well as teaching the week before at the Vail Jazz Workshop. This is Terell’s eighth consecutive year performing and teaching in Vail. Terell balances a very busy international performance career while heading up the Jazz Studies Program at Temple University.

• Miles Dewey Davis III, one of the most innovative trumpeters in jazz, had a highly incendiary personality and was known as the “Prince of Darkness”. A reformed heroin addict, he trained as a boxer later in life. Credited with constantly reinventing himself as a musician, Miles played with all of the greats of jazz from the 1940s-1970s.

• In New Orleans at the beginning of the 20th century, brass bands that crossed paths while out on the street attempting to publicize up-coming performances engaged in spontaneous competitions to determine who was best. Known as cutting contests (also bucking or carving contests), they were the precursor to the battle of the bands during the swing era.

• Jazz has not only evolved as a stylistic approach to music making but also has supported a way of expressing oneself in the manner of dress. Whether it was Cab Calloway’s flamboyant white tux and tails, the zoot suits of the 1940s, or Lester Young’s pork pie hat, jazz musicians have been known for their distinctive and sometimes outrageous dress.

• Lewis Nash will be appearing in Vail over the Labor Day Weekend as well as teaching the week before at the Vail Jazz Workshop. Lewis is the drummer of choice for an amazing array of artists - from jazz masters to some of today’s brightest new names. He has over 300 CDs to his credit and was a member of the great Tommy Flanagan trio for ten years.

• In its early years, jazz was seen as the devil’s music. Played by black musicians in bordellos and honky-tonk bars, it was perceived to be vulgar and low class by the white establishment. It didn’t help much that early jazz tunes focused on sexual matters. Struttin’ with Some Barbecue by Louis Armstrong wasn’t about a picnic. Barbeque was slang for a sexy lady.

• George Wein, a jazz pianist and singer in the late 1940s, became a booking agent and jazz club owner in 1950 but continued to play well into the 1980s. In 1954, he founded the Newport Jazz Festival and went on to organize jazz festivals throughout the world as the head of the largest jazz festival production company in the world.

• Stan Kenton was one of the most innovative bandleaders in the history of jazz. His 20-piece band in 1949 was known as “Progressive Jazz” and lead to the adoption of the name as a type of orchestral jazz. Shortly thereafter he had a 43-piece band known as “Innovations in Modern Music”.

• Julian Edwin Adderley, an alto sax player, got the nickname of “Cannibal” as a kid due to his large appetite, but the name got corrupted and he became known as “Cannonball”. In the 1950s, he played with Miles Davis and John Coltrane, but in the 1960s Cannonball along with his brother, Nat, are credited with popularizing soul-jazz.

• The first written use of the word “jazz” was in 1916 with earlier spellings “jass”. Some have suggested that the word was drawn from the names of early performers, "Chas" Washington or “Jasbo” Brown. Other theories suggest that jazz derives from the New Orleans French word “jaser”, meaning to speed up or to chatter, while others note that the root word was slang for fornicating.

• The vibraphone appeared in the US in 1916 and was known as a “steel marimba.” Lionel Hampton popularized the “vibes” as a jazz instrument in the 1930s. With metal bars arranged like piano keys suspended over tube resonators that have a revolving discs inside (operated by an electric motor), the player has the ability to control the vibrato of each note.

• To most people “chops” are a cut of meat. To jazz musicians it means something else. Used colloquially for some time to refer to the mouth or jaw, jazz players used it to refer to a horn player’s embrochure (facial muscles and lip used to control air into a horn), then to any part of the body used to play (fingers of a pianist) and ultimately to a player’s technique.

• Nicknames have been a part of jazz for over a hundred years. Not always complimentary, there were plenty of players tagged with “Fats,” “Tiny, “Skinny” and other descriptive terms, but in many cases it got more personal than that: Milt Jackson the great vibes player was known as “Bags” because of the bags under his eyes; and the legendary tenor player, Ben Webster, was known as “Frog,” because of his bulging eyes.

• Jimmy Cobb will be appearing in Vail over Labor Day Weekend. He is the legendary drummer and last surviving member of the great Miles Davis band that recorded “Kind of Blue,” the album many jazz fans consider to be the most important jazz recording of all time. Jimmy will be joined by his band, Cobb’s Mob, featuring the extraordinary tenor sax player Eric Alexander.

• This year is the 10th Anniversary of the Vail Jazz Festival. As part of this year’s special celebration, tonight’s show will feature a Salute to Billy Strayhorn, the composer who worked with the great Duke Ellington for 30 years and wrote some of the most memorable music of the 20th century, including the Ellington theme song “Take the A-Train.” Throughout the evening classic video of Strayhorn and Ellington will be shown between sets.

• Nat “King” Cole was one of the most respected jazz pianists in the early 1940s; however, it was his singing that ultimately made him world famous. Legend has it that he only began singing in a club to quiet a drunk patron who kept on requesting a song from the piano player. His vocal performance was so well received, King Cole decided to make it a regular part of his act.