Legendary Paquito D’Rivera, a recipient of the nation’s highest honor in jazz, and the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band will bring their music to the Joan C. Edwards Performing Arts Center on the Huntington campus of Marshall University on Saturday, Jan. 28.

D’Rivera, who received the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award, and the All-Star Big Band will perform at Marshall through the NEA Jazz Masters On Tour program. Their appearances highlight the 37^th annual MU Jazz Festival, which takes place Jan. 26-28 at Marshall.

“We are exceptionally fortunate to be selected to participate in this NEA project,” Dr. Ed Bingham, director of jazz studies at Marshall, said. “For the past 37 years, the MU Jazz Festival has featured premier jazz artists in a venue that encourages student musicians to learn from the masters. Our partnership with the NEA will allow a wider audience to see, hear and learn from Paquito and the 20 professional jazz artists in the Big Band.”

Admission to the 7 p.m. Saturday concert is $20 for adults and $10 for students. Tickets are available at the MU Theatre box office, located at the performing arts center, or by calling (304) 696-2787.

Bingham said the Jazz Festival is joining with the NEA Jazz Masters on Tour program’s nationwide circle of participants by presenting D’Rivera and the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band in concert. He said their visit will help bring greater knowledge and appreciation of this uniquely American art form to high school and college students and the tri-state area’s public.

Organized by the NEA and Arts Midwest, NEA Jazz Masters On Tour, which is being supported by Verizon, is bringing its roster of distinguished American musicians to audiences in all 50 states. The program provides funds to non-profit presenting organizations to feature NEA Jazz Masters, with educational activities included in each engagement.

Support for the tour also is provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation through a grant to Chamber Music America. Under another component of the NEA Jazz Masters Initiative, NEA Jazz in the Schools, the Verizon Foundation is supporting the creation and distribution of curriculum materials that will be available for use in the educational activities.

The winner of four Grammy Awards, D’Rivera is celebrated both for his artistry in Latin jazz and his achievements as a classical composer. Born in Havana, he performed at age 10 with the National Theater Orchestra, studied at the Havana Conservatory of Music and, at 17, became a featured soloist with the Cuban National Symphony.

D’Rivera co-founded the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna and served as the band’s conductor for two years. In 1973, he co-founded Irakere, a highly popular ensemble whose explosive mixture of jazz, rock, classical and traditional Cuban music had never before been heard.

The band toured extensively and in 1979 was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Ensemble. In 1981, while on tour in Spain, D’Rivera sought and received asylum in the United States. Since then he has toured the world with his ensembles – the Paquito D’Rivera Big Band, the Paquito D’Rivera Quintet and the Chamber Jazz Ensemble.

His numerous recordings include more than 30 solo albums. In 1988, he was a founding member of the United Nations Orchestra, a 15-piece ensemble organized by Dizzy Gillespie to showcase the fusion of Latin and Caribbean influences with jazz. In 1991 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Carnegie Hall for his contributions to Latin music.

Also in 1991, as part of the band Dizzy Gillespie and the United Nations Orchestra, D’Rivera, along with James Moody, Slide Hampton, Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, Arturo Sandoval, Steve Turre and others, was featured on the Grammy Award-winning recording, Live at the Royal Festival Hall.

D’Rivera has appeared at, or written commissions for, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Library of Congress, the National Symphony Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Costa Rican National Symphony Orchestra, Simón Bolivar Symphonic Orchestra and Montreal’s Gerald Danovich Saxophone Quartet.

He serves as artistic director of jazz programming at the New Jersey Chamber Music Society and is artistic director of the Festival Internacional de Jazz en el Tambo (Punta del Este, Uruguay). He has become the consummate multinational ambassador, creating and promoting a cross-culture of music that moves effortlessly among jazz, Latin and classical.

The Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band, a veritable “Who’s Who” among jazz musicians, was formed in the summer of 1998 to perform Dizzy Gillespie’s classic big band repertoire and continue the legacy left by the late master.

More than half a century after Gillespie expanded the parameters of bebop by fusing jazz and Afro-Cuban rhythms, the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Star Big Band is an elite corps composed of some of the finest musicians to play with Dizzy. Downbeat Magazine calls them “a tribute band in the best sense, not trading on Gillespie’s legacy, but carrying it on.”

Here is the complete schedule for the jazz festival:

Thursday, Jan. 26, 2006

7 p.m. – Opening concert by a featured high school jazz ensemble and MU faculty combo Bluetrane. Admission is $5.

Friday, Jan. 27, 2006

9 a.m. – Adjudication begins.

7 p.m. – Evening concert by the Mark Zanter Trio and MU jazz ensembles. Admission is $5.

Saturday, Jan. 28, 2006

9 a.m. – Adjudication begins.

4 p.m. – Open rehearsal, Dizzy Gillespie Big Band

7 p.m. – Finale concert, with The Thundering Herd Jazz All-Stars and The Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band with Paquito D’Rivera. Admission is $20 for adults and $10 for students.

For more information on NEA Jazz Masters, persons may visit the Web site at www.jazzmasters.org. More information on the festival is available by contacting Bingham at (304) 696-3147 or via e-mail at bingham@marshall.edu. Further information on the performers may be obtained by calling Anne Lundberg with the Kreisberg Group Ltd., at (212) 799-5515.