The popular Rocky Mountain Jazz Collective debuts the new season this week at the Lockwood Performing Arts Center.
The RMJC began in 2019, and has grown despite some bumps like the pandemic. In this interview, the RMJC's Music Director Scott Jeppesen shares the history of the organization, his take on the popularity of jazz, his approach to composing and arranging, and working with Kristin Korb and the Eurythmics show concept.
He is quick to note that RMJC exists thanks to its strength in its association with the Billings Symphony.
"I’m a strong saxophonist, improviser, composer/arranger. They help me out to find donors, to schedule venues, to market, to handle payroll and all those things that they’re set up for, while, for the most part letting me execute the vision as I intended it, which, really, our mission is to explore American music through the lens of a jazz orchestra."
As the Collective’s Composer/Arranger, Jeppesen is sensitive to the individual performer's needs for a challenge, and not just an orchestral cover of any adaptation.
“The one thing about RMJC though, and when I’m approaching writing these is that, and in the jazz tradition, I’m really not a fan of doing covers. I don’t have an interest in writing a big band version of “Superstition” the way that Stevie did it because, if somebody wants to hear that, go listen to Stevie do it - right? - that’s his thing. So we do a very different take on all of these.”
The music of the band The Eurythmics is on the bill for the Saturday evening concert. The show features Billings’ own Kristin Korb, bass and vocalist. Korb originated the concept of the reinterpretation and Jeppesen fleshed out the reality.
“She’s going to be the singer and bassist on the show.
She did an album last year that was a tribute to the music of the Eurythmics. So she came up with the ideas and the vibes of a lot of these - but that was a small group - a quartet or a quintet. My job over the last few months has been to take her vision and turn it into arrangements for a 20 piece jazz orchestra while maybe putting a little bit of my own stamp on what she came up with.”
The RMJC’s performance of The Eurythmics Reimagined with Kristen Korb takes place Saturday, October 11, 2025 at the Lockwood Performing Arts Center.
