Athens, Ga. – The world’s premier New Orleans jazz band will join forces with America’s foremost bluegrass band Oct. 22 at 8 p.m. on the University of Georgia Hodgson Hall stage.
Presented by the UGA Performing Arts Center, the American Legacies tour features the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the Del McCoury Band. Together, the bands create a blend of traditional harmonies as the hot and lively jazz of New Orleans meets the high and lonesome sound of the Appalachians.
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band derives its name from Preservation Hall, the music venue founded in 1961 in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Whether performing at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center, for British royalty or the king of Thailand, the band showcases the joyful, timeless spirit of jazz.
The Del McCoury Band started its bluegrass journey when McCoury joined “the father of bluegrass” Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in 1963. Within a few years he had formed his own band, the Dixie Pals, later renamed the Del McCoury Band. In 1994, the band began a streak of top Entertainer of the Year honors, netting nine trophies in an 11-year stretch. McCoury earned membership in the cast of the Grand Ole Opry in 2003, and the band won its first Best Bluegrass Album Grammy Award in 2005.
Tickets for the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Del McCoury Band concert are $20 to $49 with special discounts for UGA students. For tickets, see www.uga.edu/pac or call the Performing Arts Center box office at 706/542-4400 or 888/289-8497.
The performance underwriters are Elizabeth and Tony DeMarco, Margaret Holt and Stell Kefalas, Pamela and William Prokasy, Jinx and Gordhan Patel and Priscilla and Malcolm Sumner. The media sponsor is WUGA 91.7/97.9 FM.