Quad Club fund-raiser benefiting restoration project will feature jazz

The Louisiana Repertory Jazz Ensemble will perform for this year’s annual Quadrangle Club Preservation Ball. The ball will raise funds for the restoration of the building that houses the Quadrangle Club, built in 1922, while recreating sights and sounds from the club’s early days.

The setting, music and décor of the ball will pay tribute to the historical value of the building, designed by Goodman Theater architect Howard Van Doren Shaw. But the choice of the Louisiana Repertory Ensemble to play at the event recognizes the Quadrangle Club’s role in the life of the mind at the University. As well as an accomplished jazz musician who has toured the United States and recorded five albums, the band’s leader, Fred Starr, is a renowned scholar.

Starr serves as chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and he has published books on Afghanistan as well as on jazz in New Orleans and the Soviet Union.

Other members of the Jazz Ensemble include John Joyce, drums, a Julliard-trained musicologist, and Walter Payton, bass, a 30-year veteran of the New Orleans jazz scene.

The Preservation Ball will take place on Saturday, April 26. Tickets start at $150 per person, and funds raised will benefit the Eleven Fifty-Five Fund of the Howard Van Doren Society, the group that will undertake the Quadrangle Club restoration. For details or to reserve tickets, call Tod Schwebel (312) 280-1998, Ruth O’Brien (773) 667-2679, or the Quadrangle Club (773) 702-2550.