SUNY Plattsburgh Presents 38th Annual Jazz Festival

SUNY Plattsburgh’s Department of Music announces the 38th Annual Jazz Festival featuring guest artist, trombonist Doug Sertl from new York’s Hudson Valley.

The event will conclude Friday, May 2, with a jazz concert at 7:30 p.m. in E. Glenn Giltz Auditorium, Hawkins Hall. Tickets range from $2 to $8 and are available at the door or, in advance, at the Angell College Center desk.

Performing at the concert with be the SUNY Plattsburgh Jazz Ensemble directed by Herm Matlock and the Mambo Combo, directed by Shawn Parrotte.

As part of the festival events, Sertl will also give a free jazz clinic at 7 p.m., May 1, in Myers Fine Arts, Room 324.

Born in Schenectady, N.Y., in 1961, Sertl was handed his first trombone at age 10 when he joined the grade school band. In high school he took private lessons, was involved in local freelance work in local pit orchestras and performed with top name entertainers at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Later, he attended the Crane School of Music in Potsdam, N.Y. While there, he got a call to go on the road in Europe with Paul Anka. For the next few years, he traveled and toured with various pop and jazz singers and before returning home to the Hudson Valley.

His first album as a leader was released in 1983. “Doug Sertl & The Jazz Menagerie,” featured the Doug Sertl Big Band and received a 4 1/2 star review in Downbeat that same year. It also began a 20-year association with legendary baritone saxophonist Nick Brignola with whom Sertl would record a half dozen albums.

Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, Sertl continued to build a reputation as one of the best jazz, freelance and studio trombonists, releasing a half dozen big band and small group albums. Maintaining a busy schedule both as a freelance player and a soloist at jazz festivals, colleges and with his quartet and quintet, he’s recorded and/or performed with a long list of artists including Tony Bennett, Paul Anka, Andy Williams, Sammy Davis Jr., Mark Murphy, Kenny Barron, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Lovano, Randy Brecker, Phil Woods, Slide Hampton, Nick Brignola, Carl Fontana, Bobby Shew, Conte Condoli, Roger Kellaway and many more.

His latest album, released in 2013, features his B3 Organ Band with Peter Bernstein, Rick

Montalbano and Terry Clarke. With a busy schedule of freelance and studio work as well as guest artist and clinic appearances worldwide, Sertl continues a long career as a stalwart of jazz trombone. He is an artist/clinician for Jupiter/XO trombones and performs on XO professional trombones exclusively.