More than a year after the JazzSLC concert series ended a 27-year run of bringing the greats of jazz music to Utah, there’s hope in sight for the genre’s fans.
A shortened version of the series, run by Gordon and Connie Hanks through their GAM Foundation, will return to Kingsbury Hall at the University of Utah via the venue’s UtahPresents concert program, starting in October. The new jazz series will be called “Utah Presents Jazz at Kingsbury Hall.”
Gordon Hanks first fell in love with jazz music as a high school student in a music appreciation class. The first album they listened to in the class was pianist Ahmad Jamal’s “At the Pershing.” Hanks met Connie while he was an undergrad student at the U., and she also fell in love with the genre.
The original version of the JazzSLC series — which hosted 270 shows over 27 years — stopped because of increased production costs, Hanks said.
“Financially, we just could not keep going. COVID had a major effect on loss revenue, just artist fees and associated costs of rentals of halls,” Hanks said. “It just became impossible to keep going.”
Over the years, Hanks said he and Connie sponsored one concert a year with Utah Presents at Kingsbury Hall, usually around Martin Luther King Day or during Black History Month.
After ending JazzSLC in March 2023, Hanks said he started talking earlier this year to Chloe Jones, the executive director of UtahPresents and the assistant dean for Art & Creative Engagement at the University of Utah College of Fine Arts.
“We were just kind of talking about her upcoming season and I suggested, ‘Why don’t you just add a jazz concert in your series every year just to make it a little more diverse?,’’' Hanks said.
Hanks said Jones took a few days to think about it, and called him back with a green light and an invitation to talk more. After that, Hanks suggested doing a three-show jazz concert series as part of UtahPresents. This time, he said, Jones thought about it for “30 seconds” and said OK.
Jones said the closure of JazzSLC “left a hole in our local arts ecosystem” and that UtahPresents is excited to build on the legacy the Hanks created.
Hanks said he’s “absolutely thrilled” with the relaunch, and that Kingsbury Hall and Utah Presents are the “perfect fit” for it.
“So all of a sudden, I’m back in the business of just helping some select artists and promoting the series, Hanks said. “I went from being retired back to being bald and presenting jazz.”
Hanks, now in his 80s, said he’s happy to be taking a less taxing, backseat approach to the series. Now, he said, he doesn’t have to worry about the day-to-day organizing, just the “fun part. … “None of the stress, all of the joy.”
Over the years, Hanks has become a presence in the wider jazz community, which makes it easier to book artists, he said.
Jones said there’s a lot of continuity with how the Kingsbury series will reflect the JazzSLC series — particularly with the caliber of artists the series will bring.
The main difference, she said, is the move to Kingsbury Hall and a partnership with the U.’s School of Music, to connect musicians from the series to students and educators at the U. and across the valley for a new educational component.
The patron experience will be slightly different, too, Jones said, because the jazz shows are a part of UtahPresents larger season, providing people with more opportunities to see different performances.
Jones said UtahPresents has raised $72,000 from more than 100 donors to get the series off the ground. “The dollar amount goes a long way to helping us launch this series,” she said.
The hard costs for the first year of the series totals $95,000, Jones said, and “that’s not including any of our staff time or overhead. So the fundraising effort has been critical to getting this series off the ground.”
Jones said the overall goal with the series is to sustain it “long into the future” and “to grow it so that ideally we are offering more than three concerts a year.”
“We had an incredibly great reputation of taking very, very good care of our artists,” Hanks said. “It helps UtahPresents, opens up a lot of doors and makes it a lot simpler to book artists we want to get.”
This year’s three shows feature Delfeayo Marsalis & The Uptown Jazz Orchestra on Oct. 18. Hot House West on Jan. 23, 2025, and Christian McBride & Ursa Major on Feb. 22, 2025.
Marsalis said he has performed with JazzSLC a couple times over the years, and has always had a great time working with Hanks. “[Hanks] really has been keeping the music front and center,” Marsalis said.
Marsalis — part of a jazz dynasty that includes his brothers Wynton, Branford and Jason, and their late father, Ellis — remembers the first time they brought the Uptown Jazz orchestra to Utah. “The entire New Orleans airport ran out of electricity, so most of the band couldn’t make it. I had to assemble local musicians to fill about 80% of the band. And we rehearsed that day. It was a great show,” Marsalis said.
He added that he’s excited to see the jazz series continue, especially as Hanks gets older. “It’s very important everywhere, to have somebody that believes in the music and wants to help promote it,” he said.
For their October show, Marsalis said the band is playing different material from the last time they were in Salt Lake City. The band released a new CD on Mardi Gras last year, and they’re looking forward to not only bringing the classic New Orleans jazz sound to Utah, but with a bit of a “modern flavor.”
“We like to think of our performances similar to a 10-course meal: you get a lot of variety and different flavors,” Marsalis said. “Things that you’re familiar with, some things that you’re not familiar with. And then it’s our hope and expectation at the end of the night that the folks will feel that they’ve had a well prepared and served meal that is fulfilling.”
Hanks said, “Anyone who ever attended the JazzSLC concerts will understand that the quality of the artists we’re bringing in are exactly the same artists I have presented for 27 years. … Hopefully once we get through one year of this, it’ll be self-sustaining and we’ll just keep doing it.”
Tickets for the series will be available for purchase at UtahPresents.org/jazz starting Thursday, Aug.1. There is a subscription package option for $63 for all three shows. If single tickets are bought before Aug. 16, there are no ticketing fees involved.
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