…and Jefferson’s First Family of Jazz
Members of Jefferson’s first family of jazz musicians, Dick, Jim and Sue Oatts, will return for an evening concert in their home town on Thursday, April 9.
The Oatts contingent will appear with New York City’s famed Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, a 16-member band that features Dick Oatts on sax and flute. The group’s director is trombonist John Mosca, husband of Nancy Oatts, a former professional sax player.
Also back for the jazz reunion will be Jim Oatts, a trumpeter who leads the Des Moines Big Band, and Sue Oatts, a Minneapolis jazz vocalist.
The four Oatts kids, all graduates of Jefferson High School, are the children of the late Jack Oatts, band director at the high school from 1966 to 1985. Jack Oatts made jazz a part of Iowa high schools’ music curricula and founded the state’s high school jazz festival in 1981.
Tickets for the sorority’s fundraising event, which will be held in the gymnasium at Greene County Middle School, will go on sale Feb. 2 at The Printers Box and Home State Bank in Jefferson.
“We are thrilled to offer an evening of great musical entertainment to Greene County and central Iowa,” said Beta Tau Delta president Cassie Dozier. “It’s not often that a famous band plays a gig in an Iowa small town. It is a tribute to the Oatts family legacy and it will be an evening to remember.”
In recent years, the 90 year-old Beta Tau Delta group has raised funds for Greene County children by presenting significant entertainment by internationally known musical artists, including baritone Simon Estes and Five by Design, a vocal quintet that includes another local high school grad, pianist Tanner Taylor.
The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra was founded in 1966 by two American jazz greats–trumpeter and composer Thad Jones and drummer Mel Lewis. The group plays two gigs every Monday night at the Village Vanguard in New York City’s Greenwich Village.
The group’s repertoire includes swing, ’70s-style jazz-funk, ballads and avant-garde tunes. Its latest CD, “OverTime/Music of Bob Brookmeyer,” is a 2015 Grammy Award nominee in the best large jazz ensemble category.
