Robert Sposato remembers the moment he became a “jazz guy.”

Originally from Brooklyn, New York, he went through a pretty typical rock ‘n’ roll phase for a music-loving human being — the Beatles, the Grateful Dead and so on — before stumbling into Miles Davis’ classic “‘Round About Midnight” album in 1972.

“I heard (a John) Coltrane solo, was thunderstruck and quietly closed my rock ‘n’ roll record box, never to return,” he said with a chuckle. “That launched me into jazz, and I got very passionate about it.”

Over the following decades, Sposato became a jazz historian, a DJ and a programming director at a radio station, working his way to the West Coast and eventually ending up in Eugene, where he founded The Jazz Station, a concert venue focused on live jazz that survived the COVID-19 pandemic and is “on solid ground” now, he said.

Jazzing up Sisters

In 2017, Sposato moved to Sisters and soon found himself pining for live jazz. He started meeting local musicians, booking them gigs and investigating options for a potential venue. He also organized a monthly jazz jam for young people and students and local schools.

“I was doing all of this just so I could hear jazz, but it also fell right into my passion and my experience,” he said.

To answer an obvious question, Sposato is an “amateur player,” he said. “Not good enough to perform, but I still have aspirations of being the late-night guy with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, playing the heck out of the piano. I’m just not there yet.”

Last summer, Sposato was on the verge of signing a lease on his own space for shows when a restaurant in town, the Sisters

Depot, stepped up and offered to host a seven-date series of jazz concerts. All of them sold out.

“That told me that, yes, I still have it in me,” he said, “and yes, there’s an audience for this in Sisters.”

Take it away, Bend

Now, Sposato is turning his sights to Bend.

On Friday, March 8, he’ll produce a concert designed to celebrate the classic jazz of the 1950s and the Great American Songbook, featuring a quintet of local players, plus drummer Adam Carlson of Portland, who grew up in Central Oregon. Rounding out the lineup will be Jack Krouscup on piano, Tom Bergeron on saxophone, Jim Tennant on trumpet, Andrew Lion on bass and Elise Franklin handling vocals.

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Sposato hand-picked the band — now named The Stardust Jazz Ensemble — to ensure high-quality musicianship, and he created the set list to highlight the legends of the genre, from Miles and Coltrane to Thelonious Monk and beyond.

“Jazz was at a pinnacle during the 1950s and this band will show you why,” he said. “They swing!”

If the March 8 show goes well, Sposato hopes to produce more concerts in Bend. Now it’s just a matter of getting people into the space so they can really soak in the music that he fell in love with all those years ago.

“This is going to be a very listenable, very upbeat, very tap your feet kind of thing. We’re not going avant garde here,” he said. “It’s going to be beautiful stuff, really well presented and enjoyable for all who attend.”

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If You Go

What: The Stardust Jazz Ensemble

When: 7 p.m. Friday, March 8, doors open 6:15 p.m.

Where: One World Center (at Unity Spiritual Community of Central Oregon), 63645 Scenic Drive, Bend

Cost: $20 online at bendticket.com, $25 at the door

Contact: 541-513-1997 or robspo@comcast.net