Results for "modern jazz"

Zhengtao Pan

Born: May 22, 2003

Zhengtao Pan is a composer and arranger born in 2003 who grew up in Shanghai, China. Currently studying Jazz Composition and Composition at Berklee College of Music, his commercial game works include "Mist Sequence," "Lost Soul Aside," "One Piece: The Bloodline," and "Arknights," among others. He has worked on music outsourcing for companies like ByteDance, Masaya Games, and miHoYo.

Beyond media scoring, Zhengtao Pan excels as an arranger and orchestrator for jazz orchestras and Big Bands, with his concert music premiered by ensembles like the HyperCube ensemble, Cascadia Composers, and Webster University.

Delfeayo Marsalis & The Uptown Jazz Orchestra

Active since: 2007

Uptown Jazz Orchestra’s mission is to promote the rich cultural legacy of American music through both entertaining and educational performances. Our educational shows are designed to give young people a greater awareness of important historical figures and musical traditions. All other shows are designed specifically with the intent of folks having a good time … hands clapping, toes tapping and rump shaking!

In 2007, NEA Jazz Master and Grammy Award winning trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis formed the Uptown Jazz Orchestra (UJO) for the purpose of keeping important jazz music traditions alive; such as riff-playing, spontaneous group improvisations, and collective New Orleans instrumental polyphony. At the time, Marsalis realized that the New Orleans music community was lacking the infusion of young homegrown talent outside of the great brass band tradition, and chose to form an orchestra that could present traditional, classic, and modern compositions with authenticity. Since that time, UJO has grown into one of the premier large ensembles in the world, releasing four CDs to critical acclaim, and touring locally, nationally, and internationally.

Delfeayo Marsalis

Born: July 28, 1965

Delfeayo Marsalis is one of the top trombonists, composers and producers in jazz today. Known for his “technical excellence, inventive mind and frequent touches of humor…”(Leonard Feather, Los Angeles Times), he is “…one of the best, most imaginative and musical of the trombonists of his generation.” (Philip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner.) In January 2011, Delfeayo and the Marsalis family (father Ellis and brothers Branford, Wynton and Jason) earned the nation’s highest jazz honor" a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award.

Born in New Orleans on July 28, 1965, Marsalis was destined to a life in music. “I remember my dad (Ellis Marsalis) playing piano at the house, and me laying underneath the piano as a child, listening to him play. After briefly trying bass and drums, in sixth grade I gravitated towards the trombone, which was an extension of my personality. Early on my influences and inspirations included J.J. Johnson, Curtis Fuller, Al Grey, Tyree Glenn and Tommy Dorsey.” Marsalis attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts high school, was classically trained at the Eastern Music Festival and Tanglewood Institute, and majored in both performance and audio production at the Berklee College of Music.

Ben Tweedt

Ben Tweedt is a pianist, composer, arranger, and music educator based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Born in Brunswick, Ohio and raised in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Ben began his classical training on the piano from a young age. By the beginning of his Piano Performance bachelor's degree at the University of Nebraska-Omaha at the age of 17, he began to switch his focus to improvisation and composition while actively participating in the Omaha music scene.

In 2016, Ben moved to his current home city of Cincinnati, where he works full-time as a freelance musician, performing and teaching around the region spanning many genres and playing with a variety of artists. In addition to his own projects including a piano trio and a progressive jazz fusion quartet, Ben performs regularly with other notable musicians in the region including drummer/percussionist Walfredo Reyes Jr. and guitarist Dan Wilson. Ben was also the grand prize winner of the 2019 American Jazz Pianist Competition at the Yamaha Artist Center in New York.

Brendan Nie

Dimitri Nassar

Born: January 23

Pianist/Music Educator

Dimitri Nassar was born in East Cleveland, Ohio, where he began playing the piano at five years old at the insistence of his father Ivan Nassar, a professional piano tuner. Dimitri’s early piano studies took place at the Cleveland Music School Settlement and the Cleveland Institute of Music under distinguished pianist and jazz educator Cliff Habian. With more than a decade of piano instruction under his belt, Dimitri Nassar was accepted into Shaw High School's jazz ensemble “Rhythm Teens” and was later recruited to further his talents at South Carolina State University, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in music education. Dimitri later earned a master’s degree in music education from Anderson University.  

Ikechi Onyenaka

Born: December 2, 1996

   Ikechi Onyenaka is an American jazz saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and recording artist from Upper Darby, Pennsylvania on the rise in modern jazz. Although his primary instrument is the alto saxophone, he also plays the tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, clarinet, piano, keyboard, bass, and drums. As a saxophonist and songwriter, he takes a wide range of influences from the likes of Grover Washington Jr, Kenny Garrett, Robert Glasper, Stevie Wonder, and J Cole. Through emotionally driven saxophone melodies, atmospheric piano chords, and immaculate bass lines, Ikechi Onyenaka has truly created his own lane in modern jazz with his original music. 

Jonah David

Born: October 30, 1977

Jonah David was born in South Orange, New Jersey on October 30, 1977. Both of his parents
had remarkable stories to pass down. His father began his career as an activist lawyer who worked with civil rights leader James Farmer in New Orleans; decades later, he won a landmark New Jersey Supreme Court case on behalf of thousands of shabbily treated tenement dwellers in the state.

David’s mother grew up in Harbin, a flourishing Jewish community in Japanese-occupied China where her Russian grandparents had traveled via the Trans-Siberian Railway to escape the pogroms. Her grandfather got rich operating a soap factory there, but lost everything after China retook its lost territories in the Sino-Japanese War and persecuted the Jews. Unable to get a visa to the United States, the family escaped to Israel, where they lived for a decade before finally making it to America.

Gwen Sampé

Gwen Sampé is a jazz singer for whom the art of improvising is an integral and indispensable part of her musical soundscape. Born into a family of singers in Houston, Texas her approach to jazz singing is rooted in the past yet unapologetically modern.

Nurtured on John Coltrane and Betty Carter, she brings surprise and daring to her performances. Her artistic background is rich and diverse. As well performing on the jazz circuit, she has also performed in, and directed, contemporary jazz inflected mixed media theatre pieces, including a self-produced one woman show, “From the Fields to the Concert Hall,”  first performed in Italy.

Stefano Andreatta