Harvey Lockhart, a Grammy nominated saxophonist, composer and music educator, works with members of the Maplewood Richmond Heights High School Jazz Band. Lockhart was one of several professional clinicians working with area students during the the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival Friday at the Blanch M. Touhill Performing Arts Center. (Photos by Derik Holtmann)

For more than two decades, the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival has brought middle and high school bands across Missouri and Illinois to the University of Missouri–St. Louis for a multi-day celebration of the iconic American art form.

Gary Brandes, a former faculty member in the Department of Music and a longtime high school band director, had been serving as the festival’s coordinator, but this year he passed the torch to Matthew Henry.

Henry, associate teaching professor and director of Percussion Studies at the university, was excited to take the lead on the 2025 Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival and put a new spin on the event.

“The idea here was to breathe a little new life into the festival,” he said.

The basic structure of the event remained similar to previous years. About 40 high schools and middle schools, some coming from as far as Branson, Missouri, and Peoria, Illinois, descended on the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center Friday and Saturday to hone their craft with professional clinicians and perform for expert adjudicators in the Anheuser-Busch Performance Hall.

However, this year, Henry introduced masterclass sessions held in the Arts Administration Building and the Millennium Student Center with UMSL music faculty and professional musicians to provide more specialized instruction to the young performers.

Jacob Melsha, a New York City based trombonist, composer and music educator, instructs members of the North Point High School Jazz Band. Melsha also performed during Friday evening’s “A Night of Soul Jazz” concert.

“In a jazz band, typically there are brass instruments, there are woodwind instruments, which are primarily saxophone, and then there’s the rhythm section, which is bass, piano, drums, guitar, percussion,” Henry explained. “We’re just trying to give the students a little bit more focused information that they don’t get when the whole band is there.”

In addition to the new masterclasses, Henry also integrated Latin and Afro-Cuban compositions into Friday night’s featured performance. He led the UMSL Alumni Big Band accompanied by Michele Fernández, a Florida-based composer and musician. The band played several of Fernández’s original pieces, including a few that haven’t been published yet.

Henry encountered Fernández’s work while presenting his research on Afro-Cuban and West African percussion at the Missouri Music Educators Association Conference about three years ago. The festival provided the perfect opportunity for the two to collaborate and diversify the event’s musical offerings beyond big band swing.

This year’s festival also included a lineup of food trucks stationed outside the Touhill throughout the day on Friday. Dawn Weber, a trumpet instructor in the Department of Music, arranged the food vendors to make it easy for visiting students to grab a bite to eat in between sessions. Aside from the convenience, Henry and Weber hoped the food trucks would add to the lively experience for visiting students.

“The ultimate hope is that they get inspired by something that they see to stay on the path of music for the rest of their lives,” Henry said. “But we also want them to come to UMSL, right? We want them to see the Touhill. They go to the MSC, and they see the Century Rooms and the bookstore. It gives them a little taste of campus. This is the first year that we have students spreading out on campus, and we’re doing that purposely to give them more of an experience.”

Dustin Brown, the concert band director for Neosho High School, has brought students to the festival for the past four years. Brown said the trip across the state is a highlight for band members.

Members of the Hardin Middle School Jazz Band perform on Friday.

“They enjoy the experience,” he said. “It’s a really cool stage. It’s a really nice building, and it gets them exposed to the art of playing in all these different venues. It affects how you think and learn how to perform.”

Brown’s ensemble performed three selections for adjudicators: “Well, You Needn’t” by Thelonious Monk, “Summer Never Ends” by Bill Liston and “Little Big Gumbo” by Victor Lopez. After coming off the Anheuser-Busch Performance Hall stage for the first time, seniors Ace Farley and Jared Harvey understood what Brown meant about learning to play in different venues.

“Now that we actually know how the stage is and we know how the room projects our sound, I have a feeling that we’ll be a lot more comfortable the second time,” Farley said.

Farley, a saxophonist who has played since sixth grade, said there are few tricky runs in “Well, You Needn’t” that challenged his finger work, and Harvey, a trumpeter who has played since sixth grade, added that there’s a part in “Little Big Gumbo” with lots of eighth notes that was equally exacting. Despite adjusting to a new stage and learning demanding compositions, the band’s spirits remained high Friday.

“I think we’re really feeling the music instead of just playing notes,” Harvey said.

Farley and Harvey were also excited to explore St. Louis on the trip, including visits to the Saint Louis Zoo and the Gateway Arch.

“I actually used to live here in St. Louis,” Farley said. “The problem was I never got out and did anything. When I moved away, I got involved in band, and it has been kind of like my family for me. Coming back here to play and perform and to have fun, it really does something for me. It’s really good.”

Attendees on Friday night also heard “A Night of Soul Jazz,” featuring top global musicians such as Weber, Andrew Bethany, Aska Maret, Jacob Melsha, Reggie Thomas and Colin Trusedell.