Festival History

The Jazz Festival was begun by retired Willamette Director of Bands Dr. Martin Behnke in 1982. The festival’s goal has long been to unite northwest jazz students together with respected jazz artists in a non-competitive, educational setting. The festival has included middle school, high school and college jazz bands in varying years. Currently, the festival is open to all sizes of high school jazz ensembles.

The highlight of the festival in every year since its inception has been the inclusion of a jazz great to serve the festival headliner and to perform with Willamette students and faculty.

Among the jazz greats featured by the festival in the past 26 years are:

Dizzy Gillespie
Conte Condoli
Ray Brown
Jimmy Heath
Don Lanphere
Herbie Mann
Clark Terry
Benny Golson
The Mel Brown Septet
Frankie Capp