Trumpet virtuoso Byron Stripling first stepped into the limelight with Lionel Hampton and later joined the Count Basie Orchestra. He’s toured and recorded with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, and Sonny Rollins. With his radiant charisma and irrepressible enthusiasm for music, Stripling is a natural bandleader. These days, he leads some of the country’s biggest bands—literally—as a symphony orchestra conductor. Local audiences have seen him in front of Sarasota Orchestra for high-octane Pops programs or lighting up the night at the Orchestra’s Outdoor Pops show. 

Stripling returns to town this March, this time with a soulful, foot-stomping tribute to the entwined roots of jazz and the blues, titled When the Saints Go Marching In (March 13-14, Van Wezel). We caught up with Stripling ahead of the show to talk about why a symphony-sized helping of the blues is exactly what our spirits need sometimes.

Your program for When the Saints Go Marching In reads like a musical family tree, reaching back to traditional gospel songs like “Down by the Riverside” and Tin Pan Alley gems like Irving Berlin’s “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” All put together, what story does this music tell?

Byron Stripling: This concert curates the best music from that beginning era of New Orleans jazz. Obviously, the thing that has been so important for me is the Louis Armstrong portion of it. Louis Armstrong came from the poverty of the streets of New Orleans and went through horrible things in his young life. Somehow, he emerged and traveled the world, moving people who heard his music.

That's the American dream: for this to be a place where you can build yourself up. My hope is that the United States always keeps the ideal that anybody from anywhere—however you got here, whatever brings you here—can go to that next level with hard work, which means you’ve got to have calloused hands and sore feet.

Louis Armstrong also had this beautiful smile; I always call it a “keyboard smile.” With all that happened to Armstrong, music became a different way for him to find love. He’s quoted as saying, “I'm here in the cause of happiness.” 

We last saw guest vocalist Crystal Monee Hall with Sarasota Orchestra on a program of Motown hits. How does she channel the energy of legendary Jazz Age divas?

Stripling: As Tina Turner would say, she’s “simply the best.” One of the cool things we’ll be doing with her is Ma Rainey’s “Prove It on Me Blues.” I think it's notable that during Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey’s time, singing those songs the way that they sang them was almost forbidden. They could have easily gotten arrested for the way they led their lives. But these women were powerful human beings. 

Let’s talk about the blues. Why on earth does a genre built on heartbreak and hardship make us feel so good? 

Stripling: “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” is a very important spiritual on this program, dating back to the age of slavery in America. After coming over from Africa, with half of the people dying on the boats, what did they do with the burden of bitterness? They sang it out: all the pain, the heartbreak, the feelings of wanting to pop somebody upside the head. Well, this is the power of music. You can use it to refresh and heal yourself. 

How do you describe what happens when this music gets the symphony orchestra treatment?

There’s a chance to make it even more beautiful. We're still going to do “Hoochie Coochie Man,” but we're going to look good while we're doing it, wearing the tux. (laughs) It's a whole different level when we are soundtracked by cellos, violas, two violin sections, woodwinds—all of that adding to the emotion of the songs.

Rather than sitting in front of a TV all day, getting depressed and thinking, How come I just have no energy? I’d like to encourage people in Sarasota to come to a live show and sit next to actual humans. Depression has an abundance of cures, and one of them is being with other people, especially those who want to be lifted by the power of music. And if you just open up your heart and let us in, we’ll do that for you. 

Sarasota Orchestra presents Pops: When the Saints Go Marching In

• When: March 13 (7:30 pm), March 14 (2:30 pm and 7:30 pm)   
• Where: Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall 
• Tickets: Visit SarasotaOrchestra.org 

Programs and featured artists are subject to change.