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Over the last five decades, the jazz festival at University of Idaho has been led by a handful of committed directors. But there’s one man who is credited with transforming the event into the nationally known tradition it has become today: Doc Skinner.

Lynn “Doc” Skinner has been part of the jazz festival since he arrived in Moscow in the early ’70s as the director of music education at the university. He became festival director in 1976, and in 1984, Skinner invited Lionel Hampton to the festival. The pair of musicians bonded over a passion for jazz and a shared dream to keep the art form alive and well through youth education, forming a partnership and friendship that infused the festival with an inspiring energy and a renewed focus on educating the next generation of jazz musicians. Skinner served as executive director of the festival — which was renamed in Hamp’s honor in 1985 — until he retired in 2007. During his tenure as executive director of the festival, he brought some of the world’s greatest jazz artists to Moscow. In addition to Lionel Hampton, headliners included Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Toots Thielemans, Ray Brown and Sarah Vaughan.

Thanks to Skinner’s efforts, the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival received the National Medal of Arts in 2007. In 2010, his impact on music education was recognized with the Governor’s Awards in the Arts for Support of Arts Education from Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter.

Doc Skinner continues to share his passion of jazz by teaching and attending the festival each year.

As the nation honored jazz great Lionel Hampton during his centennial birth year in 2008, the White House gave accolades to Hampton’s jazz and education legacy – a legacy that endures in the seemingly unlikely locale of Moscow, Idaho.

The University of Idaho Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival received the National Medal of Arts, the nation’s most prestigious arts award, from President George W. Bush in 2007 as part of this celebration of Hampton’s legacy.

Former university President Timothy P. White and festival Artistic Director John Clayton accepted the medal in a White House ceremony.

“This recognition affirms the vision shared by Lionel Hampton and the university about the power of jazz and education to bridge cultures, inspire creativity and develop the musical leadership abilities of the next generation of jazz leaders,” White said.

Hampton envisioned more than an annual gathering of the world's top jazz musicians in the heart of winter in a small university town. He had a bigger dream — investing in future generations to perpetuate jazz as an art form and providing young students with a great introduction to a uniquely American style of music.

In 1985, the festival was renamed the Lionel Hampton/Chevron Festival in his honor and rededicated as the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in 2006. Hampton died in 2002 at age 94.

The Jazz in the Schools program began in 1995. The program takes visiting musicians to elementary schools in northern Idaho and eastern Washington to introduce students to this truly American art form.

Learn more about the Jazz in the Schools program

The International Jazz Collections (IJC) in University of Idaho's Library holds materials from the festival’s past dating back to the late 1960’s. The IJC is the preeminent jazz archive in the Pacific Northwest and features archival materials from the estates of Lionel Hampton, Pete and Conte Candoli, Al Grey, Ray Brown, Leonard Feather, Dizzy Gillespie and many more.