A really big show

If Bill Cosby had had his way, ''Three Score: The Berklee 60th Anniversary Concert" would have looked more like a rumble than a star-studded showcase. The comedian's big concept? A Berklee vs. Juilliard battle of the bands, with Cosby as referee. Logistics, at the very least, were prohibitive.

But Berklee College of Music president Roger Brown liked the idea of gathering powerhouses connected to the college for a one-night musical blowout, and that's how Herbie Hancock, Paul Simon, Gloria Estefan, Juan Luis Guerra, Gary Burton, Michel Camilo, and Cosby himself wound up on the eclectic bill for tomorrow's sold-out concert at the Wang Center, which celebrates six decades of innovative music education and benefits the Berklee Presidential Scholarship Fund -- the first full four-year scholarship of its kind at a music college.

''I'm trying to get people in Boston to appreciate what Berklee is as a college and also as a cultural institution, in the way people appreciate the symphony," Brown says of the event. ''We've invited everyone ever affiliated with the college, but I also want the lady who's read about us in the Globe to come and say, 'My goodness!' "

Twelve-time Grammy-winning producer Phil Ramone, who received an honorary doctorate from Berklee in 1987 and joined the board of trustees several years ago, was brought on to produce ''Three Score." Ramone's name, which has been attached to luminaries from Ray Charles to Paul McCartney, ''was the juice," according to Brown, and key to securing commitments from many of the artists. True to form, Ramone began by commissioning three well-known arranger/composers and longtime colleagues -- Rob Mounsey, Philippe Saisse, and Victor Vanacore, Berklee alums all -- to create a triptych overture that will chronicle 60 years of music history.

''I've realized over the years that graduates from Berklee were the people I was hiring," says Ramone. ''It has a track record that's meaningful for me. And while it's great to go to conservatory -- I don't want to put down Juilliard, it was great -- when you go through the halls at Berklee you hear rock and hip-hop and jazz and pop. They train for television, for film, for the actual world we live in. This is a great way to hand back some thanks."

Ramone doesn't want to spoil any surprises but will say that he anticipates bountiful collaborations during the concert. Current students will probably join forces with former faculty member and vibraphone pioneer Gary Burton and jazz pianist Michel Camilo. Latin-pop singer Gloria Estefan (whose guitarist and engineer are Berklee grads) and merengue superstar Juan Luis Guerra (class of '82) are plotting a hookup, according to Ramone. And he hopes that Herbie Hancock will step onto the stage in the middle of Paul Simon's set. Both Hancock and Simon received honorary degrees in 1986 and have appeared on each other's albums -- most recently collaborating on a jazzed-up version of Simon's ''I Do it for Your Love" that appeared on Hancock's 2005 disc, ''Possibilities."

''I'll definitely be doing something with Paul Simon," confirms Hancock. The modern-jazz icon graduated from Grinnell College in 1960 with a degree in electrical engineering, figuring that ''I could always get a job as a scientist but wasn't sure I could get a job in music. I never knew there would be a way to marry the two things I was most interested in until synthesizers came along.

''But," Hancock notes, ''the development of technology has also made it so much easier for anyone to be able to make music these days without having to study anything. It's important that a facility of Berklee's high caliber covers that territory, production and post-production and engineering, so that the art of microphone placement, and the art of live music, and the art of interaction and camaraderie, won't be lost."

The art of interaction isn't lost on Cosby, who credits jazz music as an influence on his free-flowing comedy style. When Berklee presented him with an honorary degree in 2004, Cosby arrived on campus with an original composition for brass band titled ''The Berklee Fight Song" and dedicated it to the college with no football team. ''He's an aficionado and infuses everything he does with music," Brown says of Cosby. ''Plus, you want someone at your commencement that will give people a thrill."

''I don't know how he scored the doctorate, but he's definitely a closet musician. I've seen him scat," muses Ramone, who says that Cosby's role as host is cause for much excitement and a bit of anxiety. ''There's nothing predictable about Bill."

Less well known but equally star-studded is the concert house band, which includes drummer Steve Gadd, bassist Abraham Laboriel Sr., percussionist Jamey Haddad, and multi-instrumentalist Mark Stewart. Laboriel alone has played on more than 3,000 sessions, with artists ranging from Ella Fitzgerald to Christina Aguilera. The combined credentials of this rhythm section are -- not unlike Berklee's 60-year musical legacy -- unmatched.

"Three Score: The Berklee 60th Anniversary Concert" featuring Paul Simon, Herbie Hancock, Gloria Estefan, Michel Camilo, Juan Luis Guerra, Gary Burton, and Bill Cosby is at the Wang Theatre tomorrow. The show is sold out.

Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com