Jazz band members performed a large number of pieces throughout the Bill Evans’ Jazz Festival. A soloist performs his piece along with his fellow band members. The songs selected to play were chosen specifically with their guest performers, such as Mike Esneault. All pieces were either originals or new arrangements.
Nathaniel Callaway/The Lion's Roar

Bill Evans’ musical influence has been far and reaching and his own university hosts a festival in his honor annually. 

Evans was a 1950 graduate of the university and went on to join Miles Davis’s sextet. In 1959, Evans and his band recorded “Kind of Blue,” the best-selling jazz record of all time. 

The annual festival was held Feb. 15-18 in the Ralph R. Pottle Music Building. A variety of bands and guests performed over the duration of the festival. 

Guest artist Mike Esneault, a piano player and composer, performed on the last day and shared some of his inspirations for writing a few of his pieces.

“I was teaching a class, the regular ensemble that I teach, and we got into the discussion of one of the true privileges of being a musician from South Louisiana and getting to study music down here is getting the feel of the music and the musicians that come from here,” said Esneault. “Particularly New Orleans, Lafayette, Baton Rouge and Hammond. In this discussion, one of the students asks if there was a big band chart that sort of fit this style, and I couldn’t think of one, so I wrote my own. So the point of this original composition is to sort of bring out a kind of New Orleans second line feel.”

Esneault also spoke about his time working as a composer for a jazz orchestra.

“This one was originally a Duke Ellington song, one called ‘Come Sunday,”’ said Esneault. “Over the years, I did a number of arranging for the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and they did an album a few years ago with Jamie Bridgewater, a great vocalist, and they asked me to do an arrangement to feature her, so we did a more instrumental piece for today.”

Derek Stoughton, the Director of Bands, also talked about how he felt about the festival and what it was like getting to participate in an event such as this one.

“It’s been terrific being able to honor a legendary musician such as Bill Evans, and one that has such deep ties to this university is a great enjoyment,” said Stoughton. “And getting to work with professional players such as Mike Esneault and him coming to share his knowledge with our students and staff was just great. Everything he’s done this week has just been a treat, and we have learned just as much as the students have from getting this work done.”

Stoughton shared some of his favorite moments of both the festival and working on the festival although he couldn’t pick just one.

“I can’t put one thing above another,” said Stoughton. “Everything in the festival has just been so different. But, we have had all the different aspects of jazz like the Alumni Band. The Alumni Band was just really cool. Having all the alumni of this university come back to perform a concert was just outstanding, and having the different performances from the week and seeing all the hard work our students put in was just incredible, you just really can’t put one thing above another. You just can’t.”

All of the pieces performed were chosen with a purpose, mostly based on what guest performers would be playing. 

“Part of it was we knew we were gonna have Mr. Esneault here and so we asked him, ‘Hey, we’re going to be doing some of your tunes. Which ones would you like?’ Of course, we were going to feature our regional player, so that’s really how we chose our tunes,” said Stoughton. “We thought it would be great to expose our students to a couple of more styles of music, such as the Gershwin Team, but it was mostly just we asked Mr. Esneault what tunes would complement his song choices.”