The Penn State Jazz Club is holding its final event for this academic year with a concert in HUB Heritage Hall featuring renowned jazz drummer Roger Humphries.

Humphries will be accompanied by his big band, which he jokingly refers to as the R.H. Factor. The band will play a variety of big-band pieces, most of which are from Count Basie's big band.

Humphries' big band includes Dwayne Dolphin on bass and Nelson Harrison on trombone. Dolphin played bass for Wynton Marsalis, and Harrison has played and arranged for jazz great Count Basie.

Humphries has provided his drumming for an extensive number of major jazz and rhythm and blues musicians, including Stanley Turrentine, Horace Silver, Dizzy Gillespie and Ray Charles. Now, Humphries is an active member of the Pittsburgh jazz community and a high school teacher for the creative performing arts.

Humphries said he has assimilated knowledge from all the musicians that he has played with over the years.

"It's hard to say one person who has influenced me," Humphries said. "There is a huge mixture of all these people who have helped to shape me. Playing with Horace was educational. ... The experience of playing with Ray Charles was amazing."

Humphries said he became acquainted with Charles during their worldwide tour.

"Everybody in the band used to play chess on the airplane. I could never beat Ray at chess," Humphries said.

During this school year, the Penn State Jazz Club has attempted to focus on a myriad of unrecognized jazz musicians in an attempt to establish the State College area as a legitimate scene for jazz music, the Jazz Club's faculty advisor, Chris Byrne, said.

"What we're really trying to do is to be an integral part of the Pennsylvania jazz scene," Byrne said.

Introducing Penn State students to jazz music is an integral aspect of the Jazz Club, he said.

"If you're from a city like Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, you've most likely heard jazz. You might not have heard jazz if you're from a rural area," Byrne said.

Humphries hails from an era where jazz music was in the height of its popularity. Today's youth are obviously detached from jazz, Humphries said, but he feels that this is merely a generational factor.

"I think you kind of grow into this music. It's important to introduce it to them young because maybe they'll appreciate it years later. It's funny because your kids be running you crazy playing the music you used to like," Humphries said.

Referring to recent music, Humphries said that hip-hop and rap are new forms of music that aren't very new at all.

"Ain't nothing new under the sun," Humphries said.

"The hip-hop guys are sampling jazz beats. Now, everybody wants to be a superstar. But, you can't confuse rapping with singing. Shoot, I've heard guys rapping in the bathroom, couldn't sing a note," he added.

The concert is being funded for by the University Park Allocation Committee (UPAC) with Student Activity Fee money and additional co-sponsorship by the Africana Research Center (ARC). The ARC and the Penn State Jazz Club share a common goal for the jazz concerts held at the HUB: to make jazz music readily available to the State College community. The ARC's mission is to provide outreach for black issues across campus, and its partnership with the Jazz Club is a tactic to promote diversity at Penn State.

"Our mission is to be a catalyst for the many scholarly efforts for black issues at Penn State. Jazz has its roots in the black experience, and by supporting the Penn State Jazz Club, we want to highlight that experience for the students," ARC's director, Beverly Vandiver, said.

Penn State Jazz Club President Corey Wallace (junior-music education) said he supports the ARC for using jazz to spread a message of diversity. "I think that before we can go on as a people, we need to know about ourselves. Jazz is a large part of our history," Wallace said.