After more than half a century, Wichita Jazz Festival focuses on community and future

The Wichita Jazz Festival, which premiered in 1973, is the third-oldest jazz festival in the country but is looking more toward the future.

And that future, Dee Starkey says, involves more community collaborations and involvement.

“We’re learning and we’re doing so much better,” said Starkey, a retired music retailer who appointed himself historian and development and artist relations director for the festival. “We’ve been able to reach out more into the community and be recognized by other organizations and talk about collaborations.”

The collaboration began earlier this month with showings of jazz-themed movies at Tallgrass Film Center.

“They are so excited about doing this on a small scale and seeing how we can build on it for next year,” Starkey said.

The next event at this year’s festival is Jazz in the Round at Northwest High School on April 22. At it, eight Wichita high schools will play swinging sounds starting at 7 p.m.

The festival continues its collaboration with Wichita Art Museum with a performance by Donna Tucker and the Delano Jazz Orchestra, which features several area music educators, at 7 p.m. April 23; and percussion legend Peter Erskine, along with pianist Alan Pasqua and bassist Scott Colley, at 7 p.m. on April 24.

Starkey said that Erskine, as a teenager, was a member of the Stan Kenton Orchestra that played the second Wichita jazz fest. As a child, Erskine also attended the Kenton jazz camps, where Starkey’s parents were instructors.

The collaboration with Wichita State continues strong, Starkey said, with its Duerksen Fine Arts Center hosting the WSU Jazz Invitational, bringing area students to learn from professionals and teachers during the day on April 25, with a performance featuring organist Pat Bianchi and guitarist Dan Wilson, as well as WSU’s Jazz Arts 1 ensemble that night.

Besides April May Webb and Randall Haywood at the April 26 Grand Finale Concert at the Orpheum, the bill also includes drummer Matt Wilson & Good Trouble.

“He’s so entertaining and so delightful and he has several different groups, and what they bring is completely different each time,” Starkey said of Wilson.

The grand finale concert is at the Orpheum Theatre, which has promised a bigger collaboration on a big jazz name when it’s scheduled to reopen after its renovation work, Starkey said.

“The Orpheum has this huge legacy of jazz artists performing there, going back to (Duke) Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong in the ‘30s and ‘40s,” he said.

Like many arts organizations, Starkey said, the Wichita Jazz Festival is struggling for financing and interest in events. Other collaborations have been discussed with other groups, including a dance collaboration and a jazz writers panel, which leaves Starkey and the festival board of directors optimistic.

“We bounce around as places are available and trying to do them so we can get, as they say, enough butts in seats so we can pay the bills. It’s been tricky over the years,” he said. “We have a few angels who show up out of the blue after last year and say, ‘We’ll help you cover things.’ And we seem to show up again every year.”

More information is online at wichitajazzfestival.com/events/

This story was originally published April 13, 2025 at 4:19 AM.