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Hugh and Grace Mowatt Burritt established a scholarship for Oswego students.

The Hugh and Grace Mowatt Burritt Scholarship will go to a student who is a member of a music performance organization on campus or to a wellness management major, a health science minor or an athlete who participates in team, club or intramural sports.

“This is our legacy to the college,” they said. “We felt that it’s so hard for students nowadays.” They intend to increase the endowed fund each year, so that the awards for students can grow.

Grace Mowatt Burritt began her career at Oswego in 1963 and retired in 1993. She was first hired for all physical education and as the synchronized swimming club adviser.

In the 1970s when women’s sports became more prominent under Title IX, she took over as the women’s swimming and diving coach. “Then most of my teaching went into water activities: aerobics, lifeguarding and water training instructors,” she said.

Hugh Burritt began at Oswego in 1968 and retired in 1989. He was brought into the music department as a brass teacher and to start a jazz studies program.

He founded a jazz band which became known as Solid State and introduced new courses like “The History of Jazz and Rock,” while also teaching jazz band arranging and improvisation.

He chaired the department for six years from 1983 to 1989.

Both Burritts served on the Public Ceremonies Committee for many years, helping to plan and work at college events like the Honors Convocation and Commencement.

Hugh was responsible for bringing music into the graduation ceremonies, instituting the ceremonial trumpet fanfare, which opens and closes Torchlight and Commencement.

Grace hosted the yearly critique
in which committee members planned how to make the ceremonies better.

As emeriti, the Burritts are still active in the life of the campus community, attending concerts and sporting events, especially hockey games at the new Campus Center. They have a special bond with that program, since Hugh coached Ed Gosek ’83, M ’01 when the Oswego State men’s ice hockey head coach first laced on skates in Oswego Minor Hockey.

The Burritts keep in touch with many former students and expressed the hope that their scholarships will make life a little bit easier for future students especially in today’s difficult economy, and serve as a means of encouraging or recruiting students in their fields to attend Oswego.

Even casual fans of the genre would recognize legendary names like Louis Armstrong (1966), Chuck Mangione (1972, 1980), Herbie Hancock (1975), and Branford (1990), Wynton (1991) and Ellis Marsalis (1994).

Jazz enthusiasts may also remember that established musicians like Ramsey Lewis (1966, 1976), Larry Coryell (1974), Thad Jones and Mel Lewis (1974), Woody Herman and Ron Carter (1978), the Heath Brothers (1979), Maynard Ferguson (1984), Mike Stern (2006) and Billy Childs (2008) have graced the stage here.

Herbie Hancock performs in 1975.

The roots of jazz at Oswego stretch back to the arrival of Music Professor Emeritus Hugh Burritt, who in the late 1960s founded what would become the Solid State jazz ensemble.

“We began to get good crowds and it became very popular on campus, playing Waterman and the Hewitt Union ballroom,” Burritt recalls. “It was amazing to me how well it was accepted.”

With a solid jazz following and Burritt as unofficial advisor to the Program Policy Board, progressive acts started coming to campus. “We had a number of students on the PPB who were in my jazz history class that were really into it,” says Burritt, who himself played trumpet with big band legends like Tommy Dorsey in the 1950s and ’60s. “We had some outstanding groups come in.”

Solid State and the State Singers drew large crowds whenever they performed, according to Music Professor Emeritus Stan Gosek.

“It wasn’t uncommon in the’70s,’80s, even the’90s to have standing room only in Waterman,” says Gosek, who took the Solid State reins from Burritt in the mid-1980s and retired in 2003.

“The jazz scene and jazz interest at Oswego was there,” Gosek remembers. “Because of the enormous student interest in this music, that influenced bringing world-class acts to campus.”

One of his favorite memories is opening for Herbie Hancock, who played in 1975 at Laker Hall. Pianist Gosek was joined onstage by a group that included Solid State alumni for the memorable performance in front of about 2,000.

For decades, student musicians earned perhaps the biggest benefit, he said. Solid State would open for or play with many of the pros who came through and the program itself earned its own notoriety playing a couple dozen shows each year in the area and at various jazz festivals.

— Shane M. Liebler