It Might As Well Be Swing
Second annual Jazz Festival held at Faulkner
It Might as Well Be Swing
"It Might as Well Be Spring," by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song eighty years ago this week, in 1946. It was featured in the film musical “State Fair,” and is fondly remembered for its wistful lyrics having to do with spring fever. Many musicians over the years have taken the last word of the title and created albums called “It Might as Well Be Swing.”
We officially entered the season of spring on Friday, March 20. And traditionally, spring also means … Swing! March is Arts Education Month and Music in Our Schools Month, and April is Jazz Education Month.
To celebrate spring, swing, and jazz education, we cordially invite you to the Faulkner University Jazz Festival this Friday night, March 27, at the Tine W. Davis Gymnasium on the Faulkner campus. Admission is free. Concessions, including everything from hamburgers and chicken fingers to chips and candy, will be sold upstairs from the gym at The Grille.
Jazz music is a uniquely American art form, created in the early 20th century. It reached its peak popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with the mass appeal of the Big Band era. Jazz continues to influence our culture through films, television shows, and commercials as well as its signature instrumentation still being heard in the popular music of today.
Here is the lineup for our festival Friday evening, and we invite you to come!
4:00 p.m. – Faulkner University
4:30 p.m. – Orange Beach High School
5:00 p.m. – Alabama State University
5:30 p.m. – ASU Combo
6:00 p.m. – Montgomery Recreators
6:30 p.m. – JAZZIN’
7:00 p.m. – Auburn University
7:30 p.m. – Pike Road High School
8:00 p.m. – Capitol Sounds Lab Band
8:30 p.m. – River Region Brass Band
Michael Bird is an assistant professor of music at Faulkner University.
