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Brock students and members of the community are invited to audition for the Department of Music\u2019s new jazz ensemble, which is funded by a generous gift from the Bassett family in honour of late musicians Hugh and Marie Logan. Pictured is Brock Music student Aaron Cardona.<\/p><\/div>\n
Logan\u2019s sister, Norma Bassett, has created a fund that will support a new student and community jazz ensemble, an accompanying instrumental jazz techniques course and the Hugh and Marie Logan Jazz Series. <\/em>The gift is Bassett\u2019s way of honouring her late brother and sister-in-law, who were loved for their musical accomplishments and larger-than-life personalities.<\/p>\n The ensemble and three-concert series will launch in the fall out of Brock University\u2019s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA).<\/p>\n Brock Department of Music Chair Matthew Royal said he is \u201cextremely grateful\u201d for the generous contribution.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a fitting way to memorialize Hugh and his wife Marie and we are delighted to be able to offer this programming for our students and musicians in the broader community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Logan\u2019s love of music was evident to those in the Niagara community who knew him \u2014 as was his wife Marie\u2019s never-wavering support of that passion.<\/p>\n \u201cMusic was integral to Hugh\u2019s being,\u201d Bassett said simply. \u201cIt really was his life, and Marie was very supportive.\u201d<\/p>\n Encouraged by his father\u2019s musical talents, Logan began playing the flute and clarinet in his early teens in the Toronto neighbourhood where we grew up.<\/p>\n Among his early musical accomplishments was earning a place in the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, which he played in at the age of 15.<\/p>\n A few years later, his father passed away from cancer, leaving Logan on his own to support his mother and sisters.<\/p>\n The love of music instilled in him by his father stayed near to Logan\u2019s heart, however.<\/p>\n Bassett laughs when she recalls a time that Logan was reprimanded at work because he couldn\u2019t stop dancing and singing along to a jazz number while working on a factory line.<\/p>\n Logan later moved to Niagara, where he played with a number of bands across the region until his death at 90 years old. He played alto sax in the Niagara Falls Concert Band, flute in the Thorold Reed Band, flute and lead tenor sax with the Ambassadors Swing Band and baritone sax in the American-based Dick Griffo’s Jazz Workshop.<\/p>\n He would occasionally sub in with the Jimmy Marando Swing Band, too, and Bassett said her brother was known to always carry his instruments with him, so he would be prepared if an opportunity to play presented itself. It wasn\u2019t unusual for someone to need a fill-in and phone Logan up to come jam.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted to do something to honour that passion for music,\u201d added Bassett, \u201cand giving back to students at Brock and other musicians in Niagara was the right choice.\u201d<\/p>\n Pamela Shanks, Executive Director, Development and Alumni Relations at Brock, said the gift serves to strengthen ties between the University and the community.<\/p>\n \u201cWe thank Norma for her generous gift to the University,\u201d said Shanks. \u201cIt will create new programming for our students and the Niagara music community, and for that we are grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n Royal added that although the Department has traditionally focused on classical music, the jazz ensemble provides an opportunity to bring students and the community together to learn a popular musical style.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving students play alongside experienced musicians is a great way for them to learn jazz because they benefit from that cross-generational interaction,\u201d he said. \u201cThe jazz series will also afford an opportunity for jazz lovers in the region to perform together and develop new creative collaborations.\u201d<\/p>\n The jazz ensemble will add to Brock\u2019s existing roster of string and wind ensembles and will be open to Music and non-music majors, as well as members of the broader community. Anyone interested in auditioning should contact Royal at mroyal@brocku.ca<\/a> for more details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you\u2019re a jazz lover in Niagara, you\u2019ve likely crossed paths with Hugh Logan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":55849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7484,3319,55,37,1,4],"tags":[549,3680,6521,7483,690,46,6966,3679],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55716"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55716"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55728,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55716\/revisions\/55728"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}