![The 48th Annual Rowan Jazz Festival To Close With "A Tribute To Oliver Nelson" including The Kennedy Dream](https://www.newjerseystage.com/events2018/TheKennedyDream.jpg "The 48th Annual Rowan Jazz Festival To Close With "A Tribute To Oliver Nelson" including The Kennedy Dream")
(GLASSBORO, NJ) -- Honoring the work of an acclaimed African-American composer and his historic but often forgotten project commemorating the life and words of the late John F. Kennedy, Rowan University’s Department of Music and Maynard Ferguson Institute of Jazz Studies present the 48th Annual Rowan Jazz Festival’s closing night concert, A Tribute to Oliver Nelson, on Friday, February 16 at 8:00pm in Pfleeger Concert Hall.
The concert, presented as part of the Black History Month celebration and in conjunction with the Music Department’s “Music of Social Justice” series, welcomes as its guest artist, Oliver Nelson, Jr. The younger Nelson, a noted flutist and educator, joins acclaimed director/performer Denis DiBlasio and the Rowan Jazz Band for a salute to his late father’s groundbreaking work with selections from the 1967 recording, The Kennedy Dream.
The Kennedy Dream is an album of original songs by Nelson written and recorded in remembrance of President Kennedy. The eight tracks are interspersed with audio clips from notable speeches on human rights made by JFK. The Rowan performance will include narration by the university’s provost, Dr. James Newell.
Nelson was a distinctive jazz saxophonist and clarinetist who became even more renowned as a composer, arranger and bandleader. Born in St, Louis in 1932, he started his professional music career in 1947 playing with a number of big bands. Following a stint in the Marines and earning degrees from Washington and Lincoln universities, Nelson moved on to serving as the house arranger for the legendary Apollo Theater and playing with the likes of Erskine Hawkins, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Quincy Jones. He led his own band through a series of notable albums; worked as an arranger for Cannonball Adderley, Sonny Rollins, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Buddy Rich, Billy Taylor and many others; composed and arranged music for numerous films (Alfie, The Last Tango in Paris) and television series (Night Gallery, Columbo, The Six Million Dollar Man, among others); produced albums for Nancy Wilson, James Brown, The Temptations, and Diana Ross; and continued to perform and record throughout his life. He died at age 43 in 1975.
The concert concludes a three-day education-based, non-competitive festival (February 14 – 16) welcoming middle school and high school bands from Gloucester, Camden, Atlantic, and Burlington counties; as well as northern New Jersey and Pennsylvania. More than 10 bands a day, each day, visit the campus to experience adjudication sessions, clinics, and performances aimed at improving their skills, while also showcasing their talent.
Pfleeger Concert Hall is located in Wilson Hall on the campus of Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ. Concert tickets are $15 (general admission). Tickets for Rowan students, faculty and staff are free with valid ID. Purchase tickets online at rowan.tix.com.
