Events
Sukin Series
ROCKY MTN JAZZ COLLECTIVE: TRIBUTE TO STEVIE WONDER
Saturday
Jun 8, 2024
7:00PM
Babcock Theatre
2810 2nd Ave N
$25 - $42
Scott Jeppesen, director
With a catalogue spanning six decades and multiple musical genres, Stevie Wonder’s artistic contributions have earned him the status of the most-awarded solo artist of all time. The Rocky Mountain Jazz Collective presents an instrumental tribute with such timeless hits as “Sir Duke,” “Innervisions,” “Superstition,” and “Isn’t She Lovely?”
To get tickets:
- Stevie Wonder was the youngest solo artist to have a #1 song on Billboard. In the 59 years since no one has come close to the record Stevie Wonder achieved when he was only 13. As Little Stevie Wonder, his song, “Fingertips – Part 2”, reached #1 on the Billboard Top 100, making him the youngest artist to do so. The track simultaneously became the #1 R&B song in the country—also a first.
- Stevie Wonder was the recipient of numerous honors. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, and in 1999 he was awarded the Polar Music Prize for lifetime achievement by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. That year he also became a Kennedy Center honoree. In 2005 Wonder received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement. Four years later he was awarded the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from the Library of Congress, and he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014.
Guest artists
Scott Jeppesen is currently an Associate Professor of Music at Montana State University Billings, teaching Music Theory, Music History, Commercial Improvisation, Commercial Composition/Arranging, Jazz Combo, Music Business, and private lessons on saxophone, clarinet, and flute.
Scott is an alumnus of the University of Southern California, where he earned a Bachelor of Music (BM), Master of Music (MM), and Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree in Jazz Studies.
Before accepting the position at MSUB, Scott lived in Los Angeles for seventeen years. During that time, he performed with many legendary artists, including Maria Schneider, Bobby McFerrin, Russell Ferrante, Burt Bacharach, Lalo Schifrin, Alan Pasqua, Bill Watrous, Shelly Berg, John Daversa, Manhattan Transfer, Stevie Wonder, Nancy Wilson, Artie Shaw, Bob Mintzer, Dave Brubeck, Natalie Cole, Louis Bellson, Al Jarreau, Steve Miller, Randy Brecker, and James Moody. Scott has composed and arranged for many different artists, including Steve Miller, Ramsey Lewis, Natalie Cole, Ruben Studdard, Dave Koz, Ledisi, Burt Bacharach, Monica Mancini, Scott Martin, and the PBS Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, which aired in the spring of 2007.
In 2009, he cofounded Cultivating Creative Minds with his wife, Roxanne, which provides art instruction to elementary school-aged students throughout Santa Clarita, CA.
Scott has released two solo albums: "El Guapo (2013)" and "Wonders (2016)." An in-demand guest artist and clinician, Scott has performed for many colleges, high schools, and middle schools across the United States.
Since 2019, Scott has served as the musical director for the Rocky Mountain Jazz Collective. This ensemble aims to increase appreciation and awareness of jazz music through the performance of themed programs with cultural and historical significance to the history and development of American music. Since its formation, the RMJC has performed tributes to Henry Mancini, Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Cole Porter, Blue Note Records, Oliver Nelson, and Sammy Nestico. In 2023, Scott arranged "Christmas on Broadway," a 100-minute-long holiday show for a big band, string orchestra, and Broadway vocalists Nicolas Dromard and Desirée Davaar. With Scott as guest conductor, the Billings Symphony Orchestra performed the show at the Alberta Bair Theater in December of 2023. Scott is writing ten new arrangements of Stevie Wonder's music, which the ensemble will perform in June 2024.
Scott is a D'Addario Performing Artist.
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