Top jazz players perform at Morningside College

Hundreds of the best young jazz musicians from across Iowa and several surrounding states are in Sioux City for a competition that concludes today. The Morningside College Jazz Festival has brought in the top performers in middle and high schools around the region for three decades.Lance Lehmberg, chair of the music department at Morningside, says instrumental and vocal jazz ensembles are playing at the event from across Iowa, Minnesota and both Dakotas. Each band has an average of 17 members and there are about 90 bands taking part. Lehmberg says tonight’s big concert is free and open to anyone.Lehmberg says it’s a great place to come, sit and just listen — for people who know a lot about jazz or for those who know little-to-nothing about it.Tonight’s concert is at 8 p-m in the college’s Eppley Auditorium.