Wheaton Municipal Band to play big band jazz from the Great American Songbook on August 8

The Wheaton Municipal Band closes the 2013 season with a big band jazz concert in Memorial Park, 208 W. Union Ave., Wheaton, on Thursday, August 8 at 8:00 p.m.  Under the direction of Doug Beach, the band will perform arrangements from The Great American Songbook. The music focuses on a variety of composers who created the most important and most influential American popular songs of the 20th century. Much of this music came from the theatre and from Hollywood musical films from the 1920's through the 1950's.  Favorite songs like "Fly Me To The Moon", "The Lady Is A Tramp", "Our Love Is Here To Stay", At Last" and many more.

Bethany Norman, an active performer in the Chicago area, is the featured vocalist.  She graduated from Elmhurst College and was recognized by Down Beat Magazine as an outstanding vocalist in 2010. Other featured performers include Frank Caruso on piano, Keith Brooks on drums, Adam Frank on tenor sax, Dan Parker on bass and Kirk Garrison on trumpet.  The rest of the band is made up of auditioned musicians from the Wheaton Municipal Band.

Conductor Doug Beach, a performer (trumpet and flugelhorn), composer, publisher, educator, arranger, and Grammy Award winner, directs the acclaimed Elmhurst College Jazz Band and serves as the college’s director of jazz studies. Beach is well-known for his work as a publisher and composer. His company, Doug Beach Music, is one of the world’s leading publishers of educational jazz music, and has won 17 consecutive awards for composition from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). In 1996, the Count Basie Orchestra and New York Voices recorded his arrangement of “Cottontail” on a CD that won the Grammy Award for best large jazz ensemble.

The jazz concert rounds out the 2013 season with the hopping sound of “The Great American Songbook.”  Don’t miss the concert on Thursday, August 8 at 8:00 p.m. in Memorial Park.  Bring a lawn chair and relax.  The concert is FREE.