Displaying items by tag: jazz

Sunday 1:30pm

Recipient of OFOAM's Don Baker Award in 2014 and permanent fixture at the Ogden Valley Roots and Blues Festival, Joe McQueen is a legend among Jazz enthusiasts and the Ogden crowd.

Joe McQueen is a legend among Jazz enthusiasts and the Ogden crowd. Making his way through Ogden in 1945 he was stranded and has pretty much stuck around ever since. Unpretentious and honest in his musicmanship, Joe plays from the heart and strives to share his soul through the wail of his saxophone. 

Joe McQueen is a legend among Jazz enthusiasts and the Ogden crowd. Making his way through Ogden in 1945 he was stranded and has pretty much stuck around ever since. Unpretentious and honest in his musicmanship, Joe plays from the heart and strives to share his soul through the wail of his saxophone. 

During his life, McQueen has performed in Ogden with jazz luminaries such as Charlie Parker, Chet Baker, Paul Gonsalves, Lester Young, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, and others. McQueen has toured as a musician in the Rocky Mountain West. He played in 1962 in Idaho Falls, Idaho with Hoagy Carmichael.

During his early years in Ogden, McQueen worked and played at the Porters and Waiters Club in Ogden. This was one of the few venues open to black Americans at the time. McQueen was the first African-American in Utah to play at previously white-only establishments and to have a mixed-race band.

At the age of 94, McQueen continues to perform live in clubs from Ogden to Salt Lake, record, and was recently the subject of a documentary film: "King of O-Town."