From teaching himself to play drums as a child to working with influential jazz musicians like Count Basie, Hank Jones and George Shearing, Dennis Mackrel said he was always fascinated with sound.

Growing up with parents who were serious fans of jazz, Mackrel said he remembers hearing music from the time he could walk.

“My father was in the military and he came back from overseas with a pair of chopsticks, and my mother said that she found me sitting there playing drums with my chopsticks when I was about 2,” he said.

As a young musician who never took formal lessons, Mackrel said he was drawn to the drums particularly because of their accessibility.

“With the violin or the trumpet, there’s kind of a steep learning curve because if you have no training and you play an instrument like that, it sounds pretty bad for a while,” he said. “With the drums, all you’ve got to do is hit it pretty hard and it’s going to sound like a drum.”

Mackrel will be playing as a guest soloist with the EIU Jazz Ensemble and in the opening concert with pianist Reggie Thomas and bassist Jeffrey Campbell for the 55th annual EIU Jazz Festival.

The performance will be 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Dvorak Concert Hall of the Doudna Fine Arts Center.

Tickets are $5 for students and $10 for others.

In addition to drumming along with the ensemble, Mackrel said the ensemble would also play arrangements he put together for various big bands.

“I started with drums, and then the more you travel down the road of music, you begin to see how much more there is out there,” Mackrel said. “I got very excited about all the other instruments, and that’s kind of what put me down the road to become an arranger.”

He said the song selection would be a cross section of many of the projects he has been involved with over the years, and it would incorporate a balance between traditional jazz and modern styles.

Although his drumming style can change depending on the band he is accompanying, Mackrel said people have described him as a traditionalist drummer.

“I try to play in a style that is established and has a connection to the past, but yet something that’s essentially in the moment,” he said.

According to Mackrel’s website, he was the last drummer Basie personally hired for the Count Basie Orchestra before his death in 1984.

Mackrel said he got his in-the-moment attitude from Basie, whose music is not as outdated as some might think.

“A lot of people think of Basie, because of his age or the style of the band, as something old, but at the same time Basie was very, very forward thinking and very, very much in the moment,” Mackrel said. “He really inspired me to always keep one foot in tradition but always the next foot into what was happening at the moment and where we were going next.”

Mackrel said he, Campbell and Thomas all teach music to college students and they work together at a jazz summer camp in Wisconsin.

He said the group’s commitment to education is the main reason they are coming to Eastern.

Mackrel said he hopes the performance will show that music should be fun and encourage others to take their music seriously.

“One thing that always really inspired me about working with people like Basie and George Sheering and Hank Jones was that they always seemed to be enjoying what they were doing, but they were so committed, almost to the point of reverence to the music,” he said. “I’d like to think that hopefully we might be able to at least demonstrate a little bit of that.”

He said he would also like to demonstrate to students that there is always something new to learn, no matter how old someone gets.

“For me, it’s kind of like going into space where the further you go you just realize you’re not even close to finding the end,” he said. “It’s like endless, and there are so many great experiences and great lessons to be learned.”

Mackrel said although big band music has progressed to become more cerebral and almost neo-classical, the traditional big band was always swinging and designed to move people.

“I would like to think that music should be happy,” he said. “It should be something that makes people move and brings people together.”

Even people who do not regularly listen to jazz can take something from the performance, Mackrel said.

“I would encourage especially people who may not necessarily be diehard jazz fans or big band fans,” he said. “If you just like music or you just like seeing something new and exciting, I would encourage them all to come.”

Stephanie Markham can be reached at 581-2812 or DENverge@gmail.com.