Across the Field - College Fight Songs Reimagined as Jazz Classics

** & CD Release Party! **

CD Release Party and Concert! Garrett Fasig and Sam Butler, the 2022 and 2023 winners of the Hoagy Carmichael Award at Indiana University, created 13 original jazz arrangements of great college fight songs. They are melodies we all know given jazz sensibilities that both take them back in time and fit nicely in the 21st century.

Garrett and Sam’s band, the Visions Jazz Ensemble, will perform all 13 songs live for us while telling us stories about the songs, the arranging of these new “jazz classics,” and recording them with their Indiana University classmates.

Tiger Rag (arr. Sam Butler) - from "Across the Field"

Critic's Review:
(Check out) this delightfully inventive tour of collegiate athletics. The melodies haven’t changed — well, not that much — and the songs remain instantly recognizable. (Well, almost instantly.) But you haven’t heard them like this. And that’s the whole point: bringing a new perspective to music written a century ago, for a notably different purpose, and letting a team of savvy improvisers run wild.

In 1954, Dave Brubeck famously documented his tour of college campuses with an album titled Jazz Goes to College. Seventy years later, Butler and Fasig, along with the members of this estimable septet, have brought college to jazz, turning fight songs into love songs, frantic marches into cool grooves, and somehow getting “rah, rah, rah” to “swing, swing, swing.”

Neil Tesser
Grammy Award Winning Jazz Journalist
September 2024

Order of Events:
-11:30 am: Doors and brunch
-1:00pm - 3:15pm: Concert
-2:15pm: Brunch Ends

Band:
-Visions Jazz Ensemble

Band Leaders:
-Sam Butler and Garrett Fasig

Band Members:
-Sam Butler, lead and trumpet
-Garrett Fasig, lead and saxophone
-Nick Recktenwald, trumpet
-Jeff Parker, trombone
-Dan Ventura, piano
-Alex Hoberty, bass
-Francis Bassett-Dilley, drums

Cost Per Person:
-Member Brunch w/Concert: $31+tax (fee will be charged to member's account)
-Member Brunch: $31+tax (fee will be charged to member's account)
-Member - Concert Only: $15+tax (fee will be charged to member's account)
-Non-Member Brunch w/Concert: $39++
-Non-Member Brunch: $39++
-Non-Member - Concert Only: $15++
-Children 5-12 : $12++
-Children 4 and under: FREE

Drink Specials:
-Mimosas - $7 per drink
-Bloody Marys (Bloody Mary bar included) - $8 per drink

Brunch Menu:
-Beef tenderloin
-Shrimp cocktail
-Omelet bar
-Potatoes and hash browns
-Bacon and sausage
-Biscuits and gravy
-Fresh fruit display
-Donuts or pastries