Jazz Articles about Howard University

Howard University Jazz Ensemble: Here's to Life!

by Jack Bowers
June 25, 2007

Every year, almost like clockwork, director Fred Irby III sends me a copy of the Howard University Jazz Ensemble's latest recording, and I am always pleased and happy to be reminded that an undergraduate big band of this caliber resides and plays in my hometown (as a boy growing up in Washington, DC, I lived within walking distance of the Howard campus--but I did a lot more walking in those days).

Here's to Life! is the seventeenth album (since 1989) ...

The Howard University Jazz Ensemble: Grace Notes: HUJE 2004

by Jack Bowers
June 19, 2005

There's a lot to be said for continuity. The Howard University Jazz Ensemble, formed thirty years ago, has had only one director, Fred Irby III. For 29 of those years, Irby has taken the ensemble into a recording studio to produce an album, the most recent of which is Grace Notes, or HUJE 2004. Although the personnel varies from year to year, as it must in any college-level orchestra, the overall excellence of the music is notably consistent, thanks to ...

The Howard University Jazz Ensemble '99: Come Sunday: A Tribute to Duke Ellington

by Jack Bowers
June 1, 2000

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, the most influential composer / arranger / bandleader in the history of Jazz, was born April 29, 1899, in Washington, DC. As it happens, our nation’s capital is also home to Howard University, which boasts one of the country’s foremost undergraduate Jazz ensembles and most respected Jazz Studies programs. In 1971 Ellington received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Howard, and the university’s year–long celebration of the centenary of his birth led the Jazz ensemble ...