Jazz Articles about Sean Jones
NYO Jazz: We're Still Here
by Jack Bowers
The NYO" in NYO Jazz is shorthand for National Youth Orchestra, a marvelous concept that should be cloned and shipped to as many cities, towns and villages as possible. NYO, comprising carefully chosen musicians, ages 16 to 19, from across the U.S.A. is based at Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute in New York City, and We're Still Here marks its first full-length recording. The NYO's artistic director is trumpeter, composer and educator Sean Jones who is featured ...
read moreSean Jones: Live From Jazz at the Bistro
by Geannine Reid
Trumpeter Sean Jones received his master's degree at Rutgers University, and then quickly began his rise into the upper echelon of the jazz world. Serving for six years as the first-chair trumpeter for Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, he toured Europe with Herbie Hancock, Marcus Miller and, with Wayne Shorter, in a Miles Davis project; he is also now in his fifth year as a member of the SFJAZZ Collective. Heavily involved in education, Jones has taught at Duquesne University, ...
read morePittsburgh Jazz Orchestra: Joyful Jazz

by Jack Bowers
One way in which to launch an appraisal of this outstanding seasonal album, the first ever by the world-class Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra, is to check out its candid--and uncommonly accurate--title. Joyful? Most definitely. Jazz? Without a doubt. For five years, the orchestra's annual holiday celebration has been a welcome tradition for families in the greater Pittsburgh area; now, the ensemble has decided to spread the good cheer to a wider audience by re-creating its exhilarating brand of Joyful Jazz in ...
read moreThe Pittsburgh Jazz Festival

by Nick Catalano
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of jny: Pittsburgh in the annals of jazz history. Just a few of the legendary names--Ahmad Jamal, Errol Garner, Mary Lou Williams, Billy Eckstine, Billy Strayhorn, George Benson, Ray Brown, Stanley Turrentine--are sufficient to raise the proverbial jazz fan eyebrows. I actually performed there in the halcyon days of bebop and so it was the memory of a gig long ago in the Hill District that drew me back to the scene.
read moreSean Jones: Im•pro•vise-Never Before Seen

by Dan Bilawsky
Sean Jones, the former lead trumpeter of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, never hides behind anything or anyone when he plays. That being said, it's still worth noting that he's pulled back the curtain on this one, revealing more of himself than in the past. This album--his seventh album in ten years on the Mack Avenue imprint--has no overdubs, no percussive window dressing, no other horns sharing space in the front line, and no guests. It's Jones at his ...
read moreSean Jones: Progress and Passion

by R.J. DeLuke
Trumpeter Sean Jones is always moving forward, developing his sound and getting involved in jazz elbow-deep, believing in its richness and its importance as an American art form. He wants to make an impact and he's doing that, whether with the prodigious technique displayed in his solo projects and spots as a sideman, or as an educator. And lately, it's also directing big bands, because he believes jazz needs to be presented in an orchestral setting.Jones was the ...
read moreSean Jones: No Need for Words

by Raul d'Gama Rose
Trumpeter Sean Jones has something to say and he says it in his inimitably bright, clear and soaring voice. This is clearly why he is fast becoming associated with the renaissance of the instrument that was brought about by an early mentor, Wynton Marsalis. Jones is a deeply spiritual player. His impulse to adorn notes with joyous phrases and lines comes from gospel roots. He preaches as he lets his trumpet sing and he urges his ensemble of players the ...
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