Renowned jazz composer, pianist, keyboardist and 22-time Grammy Award winner Chick Corea will be the featured performer Saturday for the 38th annual Alcorn State Jazz Festival at the Vicksburg Convention Center.

The festival is free, and all performances will be in the exhibition hall of the Vicksburg Convention Center.

Corea’s evening concert will close the daylong program, which will feature performances by high school, community college and university bands from across the south. Corea will also conduct a workshop during the festival. One of the bands performing will be the Warren Central High School band, which plays at 9:30 a.m.

Jazz festival director Dr. David Miller said he has been trying to get Corea for sometime.

“I’ve been working on it, and he happened to be between tours, a U.S. tour and a European tour, and so that (Saturday) was the one date we could get him, and it just worked out this year.”

Born in Massachusetts, Corea began studying piano at the age of four and started his professional career with Cab Calloway. He has also played with flutist Herbie Mann and saxophonist Stan Getz.

In 1967 he accompanied Sarah Vaughan and also performed with Dizzy Gillespie, and from 1968-1970 he played piano and keyboards with Miles Davis on five albums and at live performances.

The festival begins at 9:30 a.m. with performances by the high school and college bands, with Corea’s workshop at 4 p.m. A 7 p.m. performance by the Mississippi Jazz Educators will precede Corea’s performance, which begins at 8 p.m.

“We have bands coming from Dallas and all over,” Miller said. “The University of Arkansas Fayetteville; most of those bands have traveled many, many hours to get here.”

The Alcorn Jazz Festival began in 1971. Miller took over the program seven years later, and has worked to keep it going.

One of the things that help sustain the program, he said, is grants from various organizations and help from the city and the convention center.

In the past, jazz masters like Clark Terry, Max Roach, Slide Hampton, Maynard Ferguson, Freddie Hubbard, Louie Bellson, Donald Byrd, Ramsey Lewis, Stanley Turrentine, McCoy Tyner, Arturo Sandoval and Branford Marsalis have performed during the free event.

“We have a lot of people who are helping us out,” he said. “To pull this thing off an stay free all these years, is really quite a feat. It’s really nothing like this anywhere in the world that I’m aware of, to have people like Chick totally free. You could pay hundreds of dollars to see Chick and then you’re in the nosebleed section somewhere in a huge auditorium.

“All of the artists, they really understand the educational aspect of what we’re trying to do, and so they’re willing to come for less money and they’re very cooperative with this, too.”