During The Ark's 45th anniversary year we're reviving the spirit of the annual Frog Island Music Festival. Presented each summer in Ypsilanti's Frog Island Park by WEMU and The Ark from1982 to 2001, it featured diverse musical styles–Jazz, Blues, Zydeco, and other musical styles that grew out of the African American musical heritage. It was known at the time as “the world's biggest block party!” Those who attended remember fun, cultural diversity, unpredictable weather and fantastic music! Wear your summertime festival attire–your vintage Frog Island Festival t-shirt if you have one!

Myrick "Freeze" Guillory inherited some great songs and a hot band from his mother, Queen Ida (who performed at Frog Island). Freeze is charging ahead to carry on the cultural traditions of zydeco music through high-energy, creative shows. Freeze, who played his first shows with the Queen Ida band in the mid-1970s, has become a featured performer with the group. Although he's committed to the time honored waltzes and peppery two-steps that characterize Ida's shows, Freeze adds some solid rhythm-and-blues numbers to his show, in keeping with one of Zydeco's most important traditions– innovation.

Al Hill is a soul singer, a blues piano master, and an outstanding guitarist. His music is rooted in the blues, but pulls freely from soul, country, and jazz. A mainstay of the Detroit music scene for years, he relocated to Nashville in 2008. Don't miss your chance to experience him in a rare local show.

The evening will also feature live jazz from the Community High Jazz Combo during a buffet dinner provided by Zingerman's Roadhouse for those at the Gourmet Jazz Picnickers level and up.