UCF Orlando Jazz Festival

This two-​evening festival held on the campus of the University of Central Florida is always a lot of fun. The first night the winners of a national high school competition perform then the Festival headliner performs. Last year it was Michael Mossman and Antonio Hart. This year I hear they have NEA Jazz Master Benny Golson, which is pretty cool. The group The Jazz Professors plays on one of the two nights. Cool group that had one of their albums go top ten right around festival time last year. They also have the Flying Horse Big Band which is a student band, but which also records and hits the pro JazzWeek Top 50 charts too. Not too shabby and they sound great, particularly when they were playing with Mossman.
They hold it at their auditorium in the Nicholson School of Communication. It’s a nice venue, not too large, and the accoustics are pretty good even though the space is a little academic for my liking (It’s multipurpose). Someone told me that they may build a new hall nearby one of these days dedicated to music. That would be cool.
The second night often features other acts. I saw on the page for this year that they’re doing an R&B/Soul revue with T-​Bone and Mitch Stein. Should be fun!