SITKA JAZZ WEEK
Connecting Musicians Across Generations
Each August, Sitka Jazz Week brings together world-class musicians and local players for a week of performance and collaboration. Now in its fourth year, the event was started by Christian Fabian as a “prayer of thanks to jazz.”
For Fabian, that story starts early. The son of an artist and a protestant minister who worked with international students, he grew up drenched in song and rhythm. He remembers being in church beside his mom, listening to her sing.
“I always liked her voice,” he says. “In our home, music was mandatory. My brothers played piano and violin. At 12, my favorite instrument was the trumpet. We had one from the 1800s in a closet. The mouthpiece had a certain smell.”
He wanted trumpet lessons, but since it wasn’t a recommended beginner instrument, Fabian chose the acoustic guitar. His first teacher was strict, the second so kind he never practiced. A Boy Scout friend had a bass guitar. “From a guy in prison. I really wanted one. So I got this Gibson and discovered I loved the bass.”
Getting to lessons was its own challenge. “My parents were too busy to drive me, so I worked it out on my own. I walked 20 minutes to the bus stop, took two buses, then walked another 30 minutes to my teacher’s place. Two and half hours each way. What an adventure!”
The bass teacher insisted he practice, and when he was 16, switched him to upright bass. Classical music was the gold standard in Germany, where he lived, so Fabian applied to a program in Cologne and passed the bass and piano auditions, but not theory. A drummer friend suggested he study music in Holland.
“I called and spoke with the main upright bass teacher at the Maastricht conservatory. I told him I wanted to study upright bass. He said, come on over. And I went.” The principal upright bass player with Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Orchestra took the youth under his wing for three years and Fabian played in the National Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands for a year.
“In my last year of classical studies, I was taking music theory with a guy who’d gone to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. One day, he was headed to Los Angeles to record at Mad Hatter Studios (founded by jazz musician and composer Chick Corea) and invited me to come along and study there.”
“When I was 18, I had a dream where I was flying through the universe and heard this perfect symphony.”
In L.A., Fabian met several jazz musicians - Brian Bromberg, Larry Carlton, Scott Henderson, Marcus Miller - mentors who wrote him recommendations. He was accepted at Berklee and immersed himself in jazz. He studied and played with vibraphonist-educator Gary Burton. Then in his last year of college, Gary connected him with the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival on recommendation by Bromberg.
“A crazy thing happened,” Fabian says. “That year the bass player for the Lionel Hampton Big Band didn’t show up, so I auditioned - with Lionel Hampton himself, along with pianist Kuni Mikami and Dr. Lynn Skinner, who ran the festival for over 50 years. I got the gig - and I’ve been doing it ever since!”
2026 will mark Fabian’s 31st year with the festival, held each year on the University of Idaho campus in Moscow. The festival and university are well known to generations of music educators and students in Sitka.
Each August, Sitka Jazz Week brings together world-class musicians and local players for a week of performance and collaboration
That connection eventually led him north. In 2006, the rhythm section of the Big Band, including Fabian, Mikami, and drummer Wally “Gator” Watson had “a music travel adventure.” They were invited to come play at the Sitka Jazz Festival. Fabian was captivated by Sitka and eventually bought property.
Fabian describes one pivotal moment: “When I was 18, I had a dream where I was flying through the universe and heard this perfect symphony. I saw the score. I told myself I’d write it down in the morning, but after waking up, I couldn’t remember the score.” He still talks about that dream in his workshops. Nowadays, with his music students, he’s “filling in the score and writing the music.”
For him, that idea shows up most clearly in jazz: “Jazz is universal. You can go anywhere and play with musicians, even if you don’t share a language. It’s America's original art form, merging European harmony and African rhythm.”
That perspective shaped what came next. “I love Sitka,” Fabian explains. “I love the ocean and my island, so I wondered how I could make this personal and bring the people I’m working with to Sitka.” That thought became Sitka Jazz Week, “a different learning experience, an all-instruments all-ages workshop for anyone who likes jazz."
At its core, Jazz Week is about connecting established and aspiring musicians.
“We start where other workshops end. Usually, a camp or workshop begins with lectures and ends with a performance. But we’re playing from day one, and getting better every day. World-class musicians come to teach, and participants play alongside them.” Every day there’s a jazz performance somewhere in town - two dozen free concerts in all!
On the final Saturday, there are two ticketed events. First, the Jazz Gala, held at Finn Island Lodge. Allen Marine brings jazz fans to the island to hear a CD release concert. They also get a copy of the CD recorded in Sitka last summer with Fabian, Bernard Purdie, Matt King, and Heather Gluth.
The second ticketed event is new. Coming to Sitka is “Dude Mtn,” a Ketchikan trio with Chazz Gist on bass, Kalijah LeCornu on drums and Cullen McCormick on guitar and vocals. “Chazz has been part of Jazz Week since the beginning. He started this cross-genre jam band that has played in Sitka and packed the house.”
After the cruise, folks can head to Mean Queen and hear two more bands - Hank Dynasty at 7pm and Dude Mtn at 9pm.
Every day there’s a jazz performance somewhere in town - two dozen free concerts in all!
At its core, Jazz Week is about connecting established and aspiring musicians. “We work closely with Mt. Edgecumbe High School jazz and choir students and their teacher, Heather Gluth.” She and Fabian met in 2012 at a vocal jazz workshop with the great Dee Daniels at Fine Arts Camp and stayed in touch.
Also helping is Anne Phillips, a world-renowned NYC singer-songwriter-producer. Phillips will teach and perform at Stevenson Hall with MEHS students. Collaborators also include John Damberg, master percussionist at University of Alaska, Anchorage, and the Alaska Jazz Workshop. The circle continues to expand.
While based in Sitka, Jazz Week continues to bring in new blood. “Berklee drummers Sergio Bellotti and Teri Coté came last year. Now we have participants coming from Boston and North Carolina. Musicians are coming from all over.” Ultimately, “the idea is to open people up to a world of jazz.”
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