Great Escape: Stone Arch and Events Jazz Concert

If you’re in a hurry, you take the same route home from work every day. It’s tried and true. But like all routines, it can leave you blue.

Sometimes, you don’t want the same old same old. Sometimes you take the long way. A new way. Sometimes you make it up as you go.

That’s what jazz is all about. Taking songs, notes and words you thought you knew and reinventing them to make them new again.

This Thursday, the in Saline showcases one of the Detroit area’s biggest names in jazz. The Marcus and Joan Belgrave Jazz Ensemble performs at 8 p.m. at Stone Arch and Events.

Marcus, a renowned trumpet player known for his longtime association with Ray Charles, Charles Mingus, Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, is the 2009 winner of the Kresge Foundation’s prestigious “Eminent Artist” title. His wife, Joan, a vocalist, producer and songwriter, brings a powerful voice and swinging blues style to the duo. Join them as they take a musical journey from the ‘30s to the present, complete with sweet love songs, sorrowful blues and swinging beats.

Also, the Stone Arch and Events art gallery's Jazz It Up exhibit features the work of abstract acrylic painter Cathy Marshall, multimedia and abstract painter Tom Rosenbaum and oil painter Connie Wiener.

The opening musical act is Jane Collins, a Saline High School grad and singer/songwriter who will strum on the guitar. Also performing is Saline High School senior Evan Pazkowski, who won the 2011 high school talent show. The guitarist utilizes the unconventional technique known as “drifting.”

Tickets for the Marcus and Joan Belgrave Jazz Ensemble are available online at MusicUnderTheArch.com. They can also be purchased by calling 734-316-2118 or  e-mailing Musicunderthearch@hotmail.com. Reserved seating is $20 (sold out). General admission is $15, and student tickets are $10.