Celebrated trombonist and jazz vocalist Aubrey Logan is looking forward to teaching workshops at Loyola’s jazz festival, as she brings skill and music business smarts to the university.

Logan will perform at Loyola’s 56th Annual Jazz Festival on March 7. Logan is looking forward to teaching workshops, which she will be leading on March 6 from 1-2 p.m. and March 7 from 12:30-1:30 p.m.

Logan will play her trombone during the clinics, which are free and open to the public, and attendees may ask questions. 

“I went to festivals like this when I was in high school and I know how students feel, and what they’re thinking,” Logan said. 

Logan explained that educating as an artist is different from being a band teacher at a school. 

“I will say the same things that their band directors say, and then the kids say “oh yay” and the band directors roll their eyes because they say that every day and the kids don’t listen to them,” Logan joked.

 “But, I am there to answer bigger questions because they get enough music education all day.” Logan said. 

By “bigger,” Logan is referring to industry-wide standards. 

“I like to get down to the practical side of how to survive in the music industry.” Logan said, explaining that learning the business side of the music industry has been challenging to her as a creative. 

Logan will also be focusing on practical questions about playing music. 

“I have like 14 steps to learn a song and perform it confidently.” She said, explaining that an hour per workshop is all she needs to communicate this to students. 

Logan is also looking forward to answering student questions about her music career. 

“I really like it when the students have researched me a little bit beforehand, because then they come with better questions. I do like to open the floor to questions. In almost all cases, somebody else has the same question as you,” Logan said.

Logan’s accomplishments include winning the Audience Choice Award and Jury’s First Place Award in 2009 at the world-renowned Shure-Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. A couple of years ago, she released “Aubrey Logan and her Bigger Than Average Band.” (An album aptly named, as there were upwards of 30 musicians in the recording room.) 

Students may recognize Logan’s work with music collective postmodern jukebox, a swing group that Logan covered Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” with in 2015. 

The public also is invited to attend Logan’s performance, which will take place at 4:30 p.m. in the Louis J. Roussel Performance Hall, in the Communications/Music Complex, 6363 St. Charles Avenue. She will be accompanied by the award-winning Loyola Jazz Ensemble, and the Crescent City Collective, Loyola’s jazz vocal group, also will be featured at the concert, according to a press release from Loyola. 

Logan noted that she collaborated with Gordon Towell, coordinator of Jazz Studies at Loyola, in making the setlist for the performance. 

Towell said he is excited to bring Logan to Loyola – for her immense talent, her ability as a younger artist to connect with the students, and because of the sheer fact that she is playing music in a genre in which women are greatly underrepresented. 

“Jazz has been a man’s world for all these years,” he said. “We need to break down those walls. We can’t go back and change the past, but we can hopefully influence the future. Without women’s voices, we are missing a big chunk of the music.”

Speaking on her role as a woman in jazz, Logan said “I don’t care that I’m a girl. I have a great time with the ladies in this industry. I have a great time with the boys in this industry. ” Her advice for any woman in male dominated areas is to “Be excellent. Be what you’re created to be, do your thing.” 

When it comes to expressing oneself as a woman in the industry, she asks women to be more unapologetic. “Women kind of have this tendency to sometimes say ‘hey, I’m sorry, but this is my opinion.’ Don’t do that.” Logan asserted. 

In addition to the clinics with Logan, various school bands will perform in 30-minute slots in Roussel Hall on March 6 and 7, followed by a clinic with faculty members to hone the pieces on which they are currently working.

“I hope to entertain and not just tickle nerdy brain cells, although I am interested in doing that too,” Logan said.

Tickets to the Aubrey Logan show on March 7 are $21 for all attendees. For more information or to purchase tickets to see the concerts featuring Halloran and Logan, and to RSVP for the faculty jazz concert, visit https://cmm.loyno.edu/loyola-presents.