Cape students kick off True Blue Jazz Festival
The venue was small, but the sound was big.
Music students from Cape Henlopen High School and Beacon, Mariner and Fred Thomas middle schools kicked off the 13th annual True Blue Jazz Festival with an Oct. 15 performance at Bethany Blues in Lewes.
Chris Burkhart, Cape High’s band director, said the annual concert gets the kids, well, jazzed up.
“It’s that authentic experience of playing out in the real world, real audience. Playing for your parents, family and friends is great too, but getting out here, playing for the public, especially this early in the year,” Burkhart said.
Burkhart said he has had many students major in music and work in the music field.
Peggy Raley and her husband Eddie Sherman organize the True Blue Jazz Festival every year. Raley said they are a nonprofit dedicated to keeping American jazz alive.
Raley said it is important to support young musicians.
“Any music lover knows that the only way we keep listening to music is to have young musicians coming up behind them. So, parents, siblings and grandparents, endure all that practice at home while they’re really young, because you never know who’s going to be the next superstar,” Raley said.
The rest of the True Blue Jazz Festival lineup can be found at truebluejazz.org.
Bill Shull has been covering Lewes for the Cape Gazette since 2023. He comes to the world of print journalism after 40 years in TV news. Bill has worked in his hometown of Philadelphia, as well as Atlanta and Washington, D.C. He came to Lewes in 2014 to help launch WRDE-TV. Bill served as WRDE’s news director for more than eight years, working in Lewes and Milton. He is a 1986 graduate of Penn State University. Bill is an avid aviation and wildlife photographer, and a big Penn State football, Eagles, Phillies and PGA Tour golf fan. Bill, his wife Jill and their rescue cat, Lucky, live in Rehoboth Beach.
