The 14^th annual Jazz Festival with guest artists trumpeter Marvin Stamm and pianist Bill Mays will be held on Friday, Jan 28 at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

This one-day event includes performances by Wisconsin high school and middle school jazz ensembles, clinics and master classes, as well as two concerts at noon and 7:30 p.m. in the Sentry Theatre, 1800 Northpoint Drive, Stevens Point, featuring the guest artists.

Admission is $15 for the general public and $12 for students. Tickets are available at the UWSP Box Office, Room 103A University Center, 715-346-4100 or 800-838-3378, or at the door if the concert is not sold out in advance.

Throughout his distinguished career, Marvin Stamm has been praised for both the art and the craft of trumpet playing. While attending North Texas State University, a school noted for its innovative lab bands, Stamm was discovered by Stan Kenton. After graduation, he joined Kenton's orchestra as his jazz trumpet soloist, touring with him in 1961-1962 and recording five albums with the orchestra. In 1965-1966, he toured worldwide with Woody Herman.

Settling in New York in late 1966, Stamm quickly established himself as a busy jazz and studio trumpeter. New York was bustling with jazz activity during that period, and Stamm performed at key venues with many of the significant players in the business. He gained considerable recognition for his playing with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra (1966-72) and the Duke Pearson Big Band (1967-70), as well as performing with Frank Sinatra (1973-74) and the Benny Goodman Sextet (1974-75) among others.

Eschewing the lucrative studio scene in the late 80�s, Stamm has focused his attention on his first love, playing jazz. Since that time, he has been a member of John Lewis' American Jazz Orchestra, the Bob Mintzer Band, the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, Louis Bellson's big band and has performed with the big band of composer Maria Schneider.

Currently Stamm's activities include performing as a soloist, touring with his jazz quartet or in duo with pianist Bill Mays. He has embarked on a new and quite successful venture of performing with symphony orchestras throughout the country and abroad. He continues to maintain his ties with George Gruntz' Concert Jazz Band and also travels with other all-star units as time permits.

In November 2000, Stamm released two new CDs on his newly formed Marstam Music label. The first, a duo CD, "By Ourselves," documents Stamm's longtime collaboration with Bill Mays. The second CD, "The Stamm/Soph Project," is a quartet setting with drummer Ed Soph, featuring bassist Rufus Reid and Bill Mays and saxophonist Dave Liebman. November 2001 saw the release of "Elegance," a quartet CD featuring Stefan Karlsson, pianist from Sweden, with bassist Tom Warrington and drummer Eliot Zigmund.

Consciously acknowledging his debt to the influence and guidance of former teachers and fellow musicians, Stamm also commits a good deal of his time and energies to helping young music students develop their own voices. His involvement in jazz education takes him to universities and high schools across the U.S. and abroad as a performer, clinician and mentor.

Pianist, composer and arranger William (Bill) Allen Mays comes from a musical family. His first keyboard experience was on the family Baldwin Acrosonic and his first exposure to jazz was a concert by Earl 'Fatha' Hines at age 16. That began a love affair with jazz that continues to this day.

May's professional life began at age 17 as a bandsman in the U.S. Navy, when he spent a year at the Naval School of Music in Washington D.C. After four years in the Navy, Mays joined Local 325 in San Diego and started working with the Bill Green ensemble.

In 1969 Mays moved to Los Angeles and continued piano studies with Victor Aller and worked jazz gigs with LA�s best players. He was a longtime member of the Bobby Shew Quintet, led a piano-bass-guitar trio featuring Danny Embrey, did some two-piano recordings with Alan Broadbent and had a working band that featured Ernie Watts & Abe Laboriel.

With such diverse experience and musical acumen, May became the consummate accompanist, LA�s first-call pianist for singers. Although he worked with more singers than he can recall, one memory remains vivid, the gig with Sarah Vaughan. "That was heaven, hearing that voice every night, and with Jimmy Cobb in the drum chair! Sarah was a ball and it was like family," he recalls. Other gigs followed with Dionne Warwick and Anita O'Day to Al Jarreau and Frank Sinatra.

Mays moved to New York in 1984. In addition to leading his own bands his resume includes the most important musicians of the era: Ron Carter, Al Cohn, Eddie Daniels, Ray Drummond, Benny Golson, Charles McPherson, Bob Mintzer, Gerry Mulligan, Rufus Reid, Clark Terry, Toots Thielemans, Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Paul Winter, Phil Woods and others. He has played notable New York venues including Birdland, the Blue Note, Bradley's, Carnegie Hall, Guggenheim Museum, Iridium, Lincoln Center, MOMA, Smoke, Steinway Pianos, the Village Gate and the Village Vnguard.

After recording several projects for Discovery, DMP and Concord Jazz, May began his current affiliation with Palmetto Records in 1999. May's initial Palmetto recording, "Summer Sketches," featured songs of summer and pieces by the trio members, and garnered glowing reviews and sustained airplay. The just-released "Going Home" features several of his originals and a surprise vocal.

Mays also is well known for his compositional and arranging talents. He has contributed music to the libraries of a wide array of artists, published works for solo piano, instrumental duos, saxophone quartets, charts for big band and symphony orchestra, composed music for Robert DeNiro's "Tribeca," and incidental music for the film "Hamlet."

Currently Mays tours and records in many configurations. A recent endeavor has been his classical/jazz crossover concerts with the Philadelphia Piano Quartet and the Toronto Chamber Jazz Septet.

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