Stan Pearson & Donald Thompson

Location: R.A. Fountain

Our promo for this event:

This weekend’s music begins on Thursday with a show by two Kinston performers, big band jazzman Stan Pearson and folk musician and historian Donald Underwood Thompson.

Pearson has played saxophone and clarinet in big bands and swing-jazz groups for over 50 years. A Kinston native (and brother of famed New York artist Henry Pearson), he studied music at UNC-Chapel Hill. While serving in the Navy during World War II, he entertained troops in the Pacific, playing with musicians from the Stan Kenton and Kay Kaiser bands.

For his Fountain show, Pearson will be performing big band standards and swing, as well as several numbers he has written, on saxophone and clarinet.

Donald Underwood Thompson performs blues, folk tunes, and country songs from the 1920s and ’30s. Accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, he has played for colleges, high schools, festivals, television audiences, libraries, arts councils, and coffeehouses throughout the southeast. He has appeared on bills with four-time Grammy winner David Holt and the popular folk group Molasses Creek.

Thompson is also the author of Charlie and the Fightin’ Mule: Plus More Down-Home Stories, a short story collection set in eastern North Carolina. He is currently at work on a historical novel of the Tuscarora War (1711-1713).

 

Tags: acoustic Carolina, Americana, blues, Concert, jazz, original