Count Basie Pianist Reggie Thomas To Be Featured at "MAC Evening of Jazz"

An old friend to Mineral Area College’s Music Department is returning to perform in the annual “Evening of Jazz” Concert. At 7:30 pm on Thursday, Oct. 16, in the MAC Fine Arts Theatre, Pianist Reggie Thomas will play alongside the MAC Jazz Department, including the MAC Jazz Ensemble and the MAC Kicks Band. Tickets for the concert are $5 for adults and $3 for students, and may be purchased from the MAC Bookstore or at the door.

Thomas is currently the coordinator of jazz studies at Northern Illinois University. Thomas comes to NIU from the Michigan State University College of Music, where he has served as Professor of Jazz Piano. Prior to his position at MSU, he was Professor of Jazz Studies at Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville and was SIUE's Director of Black Studies.
 
Recently Reggie has been performing with the world famous “Count Basie Orchestra,” and has also performed internationally in Canada, Italy, Poland, Senegal, and England. His recordings include work with Clay Jenkins, Kim Richmond, Clark Terry, and Mike Vax, as well as recordings as a leader and with his jazz vocalist wife, Mardra. Thomas is co-author with Wynton Marsalis and others on the important jazz teachers' resource Teaching Music through Performance in Jazz (GIA Publications). Reggie Thomas is also a consultant/clinician for Jazz at Lincoln Center for the past decade, working with the Essentially Ellington Program and the Band Director Academy. He remains an active clinician/adjudicator at colleges throughout the country and at conventions of the International Association for Jazz Educators (IAJE) and its successor, the Jazz Education Network (JEN).
 
For more information about MAC’s Evening of Jazz, contact Michael Goldsmith, director of jazz, (573) 518-2230.