Jazz, Wine, & Craft Beer Festival set for Huntingburg

The Huntingburg Chamber of Commerce, in cooperation with Vincennes University Jasper Campus will present the Garden Gate Jazz, Wine, & Craft Beer Festival on April 21, 2012. The festival is free and open to the public to attend. Attendees are encouraged to bring lawn chairs for seating. Visitors to the wine and beer garden must 21 years and older. Proceeds from concessions will go towards the Fourth Street Charitable Endowment.

The festival, a first for Dubois County, will feature two jazz bands and a wine and craft beer garden. All activities will take place on south side of Market Street behind the Old Town Hall, 309 N. Geiger Street. The event has been added to the annual Garden Gate Days held each spring in downtown Huntingburg.

Nick Stevens, Executive Director, Huntingburg Chamber of Commerce states, “The purpose of the Garden Gate Days is to highlight downtown merchants and to provide specials and discounts to customer in the local shops and establishments. The intent is to focus on celebrating the spring season. The Jazz, Wine, & Craft Beer Festival will greatly enhance the day’s events and add an exciting program to the day’s agenda.”

The Garden Gate Jazz, Wine, & Craft Beer Festival will begin at 4:30 PM and will include food concessions along with the music and the wine and beer gardens. Free sampling of wine and craft beers will be available from Indiana wineries and brewers along with sales of the vendor’s product. The Dubois County Suds Club will provide samples of homebrew and have a homebrew competition.

Jim McFaul, Director of Continuing Education at VU Jasper, and co-chair of the event states, “Jazz festivals offer audiences a means of encountering things that are outside their everyday experience. It is argued that the view of jazz is ‘high brow.’ This does not play out in reality once audiences engage with the music first hand. Festivals in particular can encourage people to take risks or to sample things that are unfamiliar; in this respect, jazz festivals really do offer access to another place where people can feel differently about both the music and their environment. We hope to accomplish this with our festival.”

Different entities in Huntingburg and Dubois County are involved in the event. “The festival is really an example of excellent community cooperation,” states McFaul. “In addition to the assistance from the Chamber and VUJC, we are getting additional support from the City of Huntingburg, the Dubois County Visitors Center, and corporate sponsorships from OFS and Quality Inn and funding from the Huntingburg Foundation”

The gates will open at 4:30 PM with the Mike Tracy Brazilian Ensemble from Louisville performing at 5:30 followed by the Wade Baker Jazz Collaboration from Cincinnati. The fest is scheduled to end at 9PM and will be held rain or shine.

About the bands:

A veritable “Ambassador of Jazz,” University of Louisville’s Michael Tracy is one of America’s foremost jazz educators, with more than thirty-seven years of performing and teaching experience. In classrooms, studios, and concert halls, he has developed a variety of innovative approaches to jazz education, enabling him to work with students of any proficiency. As director of the Jamey Aebersold Jazz Studies Program at U of L, Tracy has also made forays into the worlds of recording, publishing, and arranging. He has five CDs to his credit. His Brazilian Jazz ensemble is made up of Tracy on saxophone, Pat Lentz, guitar, Pablo Souza, acoustic/electric bass, and Lourenço Vasconcellos and Bruno “Gafanhoto” Souza on drums and percussion.

Wade Baker is a graduate of Jasper High school and has played at numerous jazz festivals including the International Blues Challenge, Bean Blossom Blues Festival, Cincinnati Blues Festival, University of Louisville Jazz Festival, University of Indianapolis Jazz Festival, Butler Jazz Festival, Ball State Jazz Festival, and Indiana State Jazz Festival. Baker was nominated for the 2009 Cincy Groove Magazine Artist of the Year as well as the 2009 Cincinnati Entertainment Award in the Jazz Category. He also won the 2009 Cincy Groove Artist of the Month Award for April 2009.The Wade Baker Jazz Collaboration was formed in October of 2009 as a means to start a new revolution in the jazz scene of Cincinnati and abroad. It is the W.B.J.C.’s goal to play an eclectic fusion of jazz, hip-hop, funk and groove music while keeping the integrity and spirit of the traditions of the jazz masters.