Lakeland Community College is pleased to present their two civic jazz ensembles for this year’s performance at the BOP STOP. Both Jazz Impact and the Lakeland Civic Jazz Orchestra will play a joint concert on Sunday, April 3rd at 2 pm. This event will be livestreamed on BOP STOP's Facebook page at showtime. Accessing the stream is free but donations are encouraged and can be made at www.givebutter.com/JazzImpact. Each band member is allowed to bring one guest. These guests are the only people allowed to attend the show in person.

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Lakeland's Jazz Impact was established in the mid-70s by Len Orcino and Bob Delly with the purpose of providing high school musicians from Northeast Ohio the opportunity to perform outstanding jazz compositions in concert with other talented area students, interested especially in the art form known as jazz. The band was dormant for a time in the 80s and was revived by its current director, Ed Michaels, in 1990.

The current mission of the group is to perform the most significant compositions and arrangements for jazz ensembles; and to give young musicians the opportunity to rehearse and perform together on a weekly basis during the school year. The band is sponsored by Lakeland Community College.

The Lakeland Civic Jazz Orchestra was organized in 1973 by Chuck Frank to provide jazz performance opportunities for Lakeland Community College students and community members. In its 48 years of existence, the jazz orchestra has had six directors: Chuck Frank (1973 -1987); Dr. Dan McCarthy (1988 - 1991); Ernie Krivda (1992 - 2001); Larry A Smith (2002 - 2007); Dave Sterner (2008 - 2019); and current interim director, Ed Michaels (2020 - 2022). The ensemble has featured countless musicians and has presented them the opportunity to perform at a wide variety of settings.

For this year's BOP STOP Concert, Jazz Impact has chosen to showcase a number of the big band compositions and arrangements by Sammy Nestico, as well as songs from the Great American Songbook. Lakeland is pleased to present Debbie Gifford, a former Lakeland student who has gone on to become a renowned jazz recording artist. Debbie has performed in the USA, Canada, Austria, Germany, France, Italy and China. She has shared the stage with many jazz greats: Marcus Belgrave, Bobby Watson, Joe Lovano and Dominick Farinacci. She is also the only woman singer to perform with the Birdland Big Band in New York and recently performed at Herb Alpert’s jazz club “Vibrato” in Beverly Hills, California.

Suggested Donation at the door or virtually: $7 adults, $5 students