To open with guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli and tribute to The Beatles.
The Knoxville Jazz Orchestra’s 25th anniversary concert season will kick off with acclaimed guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli and a musical tribute to The Beatles. Series and individual performance tickets for the 2024-25 season are on sale now.
“KJO Plays the Beatles featuring John Pizzarelli” will be held Tuesday, Oct. 15, at 8 p.m. at the Bijou Theatre with a program that will include hits such as “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Here Comes The Sun,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “When I’m 64,” “Got To Get You Into My Life,” “Honey Pie,” “Oh Darling,” “Get Back,” “I Feel Fine,” “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and others.
“We welcome everyone to help us celebrate our 25th anniversary,” said Vance Thompson, who founded the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra in 1999. “Our first Big Band concert will feature some of the greatest songs of The Beatles with an elite talent in John Pizzarelli. The full lineup includes our annual Christmas and Valentine’s concerts, an evening with clarinetist, saxophonist and composer Anat Cohen and the Silver Anniversary concert.”
Big Band Concert series subscriptions, individual tickets and concert details can be found at knoxjazz.org/2224-big-band-concert-series.
Live at Lucille’s brings the tradition of exciting and innovative PBS music programming to East Tennessee by featuring performances by acclaimed jazz artists that are recorded in Knoxville and broadcast by PBS stations across the state of Tennessee.
“Live at Lucille’s is a series that is truly community-driven with multiple collaborators,” Thompson said. “Our first concert will feature a renowned drummer in Barber and his band. The full season lineup will include the Jon Hamar Quartet, Jazzmeia Horn and Rudresh Mahanthappa. These concerts always are popular, and we look forward to another loaded lineup to support jazz in East Tennessee.”
Individual tickets, Live at Lucille’s series subscriptions, and concert details can be found at knoxjazz.org/lucilles.
The series is a collaboration among the KJO, East Tennessee PBS and the Pellissippi State Community College audio production engineering program. The KJO recruits and books talent from across the country for the Live at Lucille’s series; Pellissippi State’s team records the audio; and East Tennessee PBS records and edits video, and then airs and distributes the final shows.
Longtime Knoxville residents fondly remember Lucille’s Jazz Club in the Old City. The club was in operation throughout the 1990s and played host to local, regional and national talent. When the club closed in 2001, East Tennessee PBS production manager Chris Smith bought the neon sign that hung in the window at the business’ estate sale and secured the rights to the name, Live at Lucille’s, in hopes of one day being able to create something that built on that legacy.
The series began in 2018 but was halted during the pandemic and returned in 2022. This year marks the fifth season of the collaboration.
“We have a diverse lineup with something for everyone from jazz aficionados to newcomers to the genre for our silver anniversary season,” Thompson said. “We invite everyone to experience the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra and celebrate with us. We are especially excited for our Big Band concert opener as it will fuse jazz and pop music in what promises to be an electrifying performance.”
The Knoxville Jazz Orchestra is a nonprofit dedicated to promoting jazz music in East Tennessee through public performance and educational outreach. In addition to presenting its popular Big Band concert series at the Bijou and Tennessee theatres each year, the organization presents Jazz on the Square, Live at Lucille’s, Jazz at the Emporium and educational programs, such as the Knoxville Jazz Youth Orchestra, KJO Middle School Band and Knoxville Jazz Workshop. Visit knoxjazz.org for more information.
