Jazz Showcase's Upcoming Shows

Julia Danielle is a dynamic vocalist, arranger, educator, and composer making her mark in the vibrant jazz scenes of Chicago and New York. A 2022 International Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Vocal Competition winner, Julia earned widespread acclaim performing alongside The Tierney Sutton Band at Washington D.C.'s renowned Blues Alley Jazz Club, where she has since headlined her own shows. Her debut album, Julia Danielle, released in November 2024, garnered praise as “a fresh voice” with “a folksy wisp that floats with a bohemian glide” (Jazz Weekly). Julia has collaborated with celebrated artists, including Ben Paterson, Clark Sommers, Dennis Carroll, Kris Funn, Dana Hall, Ernie Adams, George Fludas, Jeremy Kahn, Lenard Simpson, Geof Bradfield, Chris Madsen, Sharel Cassity, Brandon Woody, and Isaiah Collier. She is also a 2024 Luminarts Winner and was named DownBeat Magazine's "Outstanding Vocal Soloist" in its 46th annual Student Music Awards, featured in the publication's June 2023 issue. Currently pursuing a Master of Music in Jazz Studies at The Juilliard School, Julia is mentored by world-renowned artists Charenee Wade, Marc Cary, Gerald Cannon, Kenny Washington, Isaiah J. Thompson, and Donald Vega. Her studies continue to refine her artistry and shape her distinctive voice in vocal interpretation, composition, and improvisation. Julia has performed at esteemed venues and festivals, including Chris' Jazz Café, Blues Alley Jazz Club, Winter's Jazz Club, The Jazz Showcase, Andy's Jazz Club, Room 623, Bop Stop, Merriman’s Playhouse, The Logan Square Arts Festival, The Hyde Park Jazz Festival, and The Winnetka Music Festival. 

Cameron Pfiffner/ Saxophones and Flute Pat Mallinger / Saxophones  Pete Benson / Organ Neil Hemphill/  Drums  Founded around 1990, Sabertooth is led by two saxophonists:  Cameron Pfiffner & Pat Mallinger. The band started out with the unique pairing of its two lead reedmen at an old musicians hang called Jazz Bulls in Lincoln Park West neighborhood of Chicago. From that night’s collaboration the idea of Sabertooth began to take shape with a driving force behind the widely varied stylings best summed up as, “just groove it”. Sabertooth has often ventured beyond soul-jazz and hard bop and moved into post-bop and modal territory with John Coltrane’s modal recordings of the early to mid-’60s influencing the groups sound. Sabertooth is both a post-bop group and a soul-jazz/hard bop group with a highly diverse repertoire that includes many original compositions and jazz classics by Duke Ellington, Horace Silver, Wayne Shorter, Lester Young, John Coltrane, as well as covers by the Beatles, Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bob Marley. Special invited guests who have performed with Sabertooth have included Harry Conick Jr., Kurt Elling, Joe Lovano, Roy Hargrove, Wynton Marsalis Band, Jack McDuff, Joey DeFrancesco, Umphrey’s Mcgee Band, and many others. Sabertooth has also performed for numerous jazz festivals, concerts and private engagements. 

Cameron Pfiffner/ Saxophones and Flute Pat Mallinger / Saxophones  Pete Benson / Organ Neil Hemphill/  Drums  Founded around 1990, Sabertooth is led by two saxophonists:  Cameron Pfiffner & Pat Mallinger. The band started out with the unique pairing of its two lead reedmen at an old musicians hang called Jazz Bulls in Lincoln Park West neighborhood of Chicago. From that night’s collaboration the idea of Sabertooth began to take shape with a driving force behind the widely varied stylings best summed up as, “just groove it”. Sabertooth has often ventured beyond soul-jazz and hard bop and moved into post-bop and modal territory with John Coltrane’s modal recordings of the early to mid-’60s influencing the groups sound. Sabertooth is both a post-bop group and a soul-jazz/hard bop group with a highly diverse repertoire that includes many original compositions and jazz classics by Duke Ellington, Horace Silver, Wayne Shorter, Lester Young, John Coltrane, as well as covers by the Beatles, Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bob Marley. Special invited guests who have performed with Sabertooth have included Harry Conick Jr., Kurt Elling, Joe Lovano, Roy Hargrove, Wynton Marsalis Band, Jack McDuff, Joey DeFrancesco, Umphrey’s Mcgee Band, and many others. Sabertooth has also performed for numerous jazz festivals, concerts and private engagements. 

Cameron Pfiffner/ Saxophones and Flute Pat Mallinger / Saxophones  Pete Benson / Organ Neil Hemphill/  Drums  Founded around 1990, Sabertooth is led by two saxophonists:  Cameron Pfiffner & Pat Mallinger. The band started out with the unique pairing of its two lead reedmen at an old musicians hang called Jazz Bulls in Lincoln Park West neighborhood of Chicago. From that night’s collaboration the idea of Sabertooth began to take shape with a driving force behind the widely varied stylings best summed up as, “just groove it”. Sabertooth has often ventured beyond soul-jazz and hard bop and moved into post-bop and modal territory with John Coltrane’s modal recordings of the early to mid-’60s influencing the groups sound. Sabertooth is both a post-bop group and a soul-jazz/hard bop group with a highly diverse repertoire that includes many original compositions and jazz classics by Duke Ellington, Horace Silver, Wayne Shorter, Lester Young, John Coltrane, as well as covers by the Beatles, Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bob Marley. Special invited guests who have performed with Sabertooth have included Harry Conick Jr., Kurt Elling, Joe Lovano, Roy Hargrove, Wynton Marsalis Band, Jack McDuff, Joey DeFrancesco, Umphrey’s Mcgee Band, and many others. Sabertooth has also performed for numerous jazz festivals, concerts and private engagements. 

Cameron Pfiffner/ Saxophones and Flute Pat Mallinger / Saxophones  Pete Benson / Organ Neil Hemphill/  Drums  Founded around 1990, Sabertooth is led by two saxophonists:  Cameron Pfiffner & Pat Mallinger. The band started out with the unique pairing of its two lead reedmen at an old musicians hang called Jazz Bulls in Lincoln Park West neighborhood of Chicago. From that night’s collaboration the idea of Sabertooth began to take shape with a driving force behind the widely varied stylings best summed up as, “just groove it”. Sabertooth has often ventured beyond soul-jazz and hard bop and moved into post-bop and modal territory with John Coltrane’s modal recordings of the early to mid-’60s influencing the groups sound. Sabertooth is both a post-bop group and a soul-jazz/hard bop group with a highly diverse repertoire that includes many original compositions and jazz classics by Duke Ellington, Horace Silver, Wayne Shorter, Lester Young, John Coltrane, as well as covers by the Beatles, Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bob Marley. Special invited guests who have performed with Sabertooth have included Harry Conick Jr., Kurt Elling, Joe Lovano, Roy Hargrove, Wynton Marsalis Band, Jack McDuff, Joey DeFrancesco, Umphrey’s Mcgee Band, and many others. Sabertooth has also performed for numerous jazz festivals, concerts and private engagements. 

Diego Hedez, a gifted trumpeter born in Cuba and now based in New York, embodies a dynamic spirit in contemporary jazz and improvised music. Diego's musical journey includes collaborations with avant-garde icons like William Parker , David Virelles , Francisco Mela and Daniel Carter, and performances at notable venues and festivals globally like The Kennedy Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Roulette Intermedium, Bric Festival, Forward Festival , Winter Jazz festival among others. His recent projects, including "The Forward Quartet" and collaborations with David Virelles and the Singer’s Grove, showcase his commitment to pushing musical boundaries through free improvisation , traditional Cuban music and sonic exploration. 

Petra's Recession Seven: Petra van Nuis - vocals Art Davis - trumpet Eric Schneider - reeds Russ Phillips - trombone Andy Brown - guitar Dan DeLorenzo - bass Bob Rummage - drums At the start of the Great Recession in September 2008, Petra's Recession Seven, an authentic Chicago-style jazz band was born at Chicago's legendary Green Mill. The seven piece ensemble is led by Petra van Nuis, a vocalist praised by the Chicago Tribune for her "interpretive savvy...light-and-silvery vocals and, better still, saucy manner of delivery that emphasizes the art of the double entendre." Petra's Recession Seven features a front line of all-star internationally known Chicago veteran horn players. Trombonist Russ Phillips grew up "in the wings" listening to his dad, Russ Phillips Sr. play trombone in Louis Armstrong's All-Stars. Russ Jr. decided to follow in his dad's footsteps, and in addition to Chicago performances is a popular fixture on mainstream jazz festivals and cruises. Reedist Eric Schneider began his early career as a member of the bands of Count Basie and Earl Fatha Hines. Since then, Eric has played with many legends including Benny Goodman, Tony Bennett, Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald and continues to be one of the busiest working musicians in Chicago. Trumpeter Art Davis is charter member of the Chicago Jazz Orchestra and a highly respected jazz educator. Early in his career, Art toured with Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney and continues to be the top call trumpeter for musicians touring through Chicago. The swinging rhythm section of bassist Dan Delorenzo and drummer Bob Rummage is led by guitarist Andy Brown, recognized in Downbeat Magazine's annual critics poll as a “rising star.” In their hometown of Chicago, Petra's Recession Seven is a big hit at the Jazz Showcase, the Green Mill, Andy's Jazz Club, Winter's Jazz Club and Fitzgerald's. Festival performances include the Chicago Jazz Festival, the Cedar Basin Jazz Festival, the Juvae Jazz Festival and the American Music Festival. Regionally, the Recession Seven has played jazz societies including the Madison Jazz Society, the Starr-Gennett Foundation, the Illiana Jazz Club, the "Masters of Swing" series at Cincinnati's Xavier University, the Lafayette Jazz Club and the Indianapolis Jazz Club. The American Rag, in a review of the band's 2011 on location recording "Live In Chicago" praises “a killer of a band that grabs your attention and doesn't give it back until they are finished playing." www.petrasings.com 

Sam Taylor - saxophone Matt Gold - guitar Elio Wijaya - piano Clark Sommers - bass Peter Varnado - drums 

Antonio Hart - saxophoneRichard Johnson - pianoAlex Apolo Ayala - bassJerome Jennings - drums When Antonio Hart was in ninth grade, the music and art programs were cut out of the public schools. Antonio was devastated because the one thing that made school enjoyable was taken away from him. Hart had a friend that attended the then-new Baltimore School for the Performing Arts and somehow got Antonio an audition. Most of the students that attended this school had been playing music all of their lives and had private instruction. This did not stop Antonio because he knew this would be the place for him. The night before the audition, Antonio spent hours on the phone with his friend learning a song from one of his music books. He did the best he could because he really could not read the level of music he was trying to play. The school was a hotel that had been made into one of the best learning institutions in the country. Hart was taken to a room to warm up, and then three teachers came in for the audition. He played his piece ‘Hungarian Dance #5’, then he played some scales for them. The teachers said thank you and that was it. Hart prayed every day, but he did not think he would get in. One week to the day, he received a transfer letter in the mail; he had been accepted! Hart considers this the beginning of his life as a young man and musician. This was such a change for Hart because this was a very serious school. The academics were hard and the music courses were very challenging. Hart found himself in summer school because he did not cut it that first year, but that was the only summer he went to summer school. After that adjustment period, Hart started to grow very fast. He gives much credit to his private teacher Chris Ford. ‘Mr. Ford took me from the beginning to a level much higher than the average high school student.’ At school, Hart played a lot of classical music but started to like Jazz. He felt more connected with Jazz because of the people he saw playing it and the chance to improvise.   Hart’s actual study of Jazz began at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. There, he studied with Bill Pierce, Andy McGhee, and Joe Viola. The three teachers gave him the foundation he needed to develop into a professional musician. Hart spent many hours in the library listening to all his favorite musicians and practicing and playing as much as possible. There were also many late hours in the practice room. Because of the lessons learned at the School for the Arts, Hart really thought it was essential to have a balance between music and academia, so in his sophomore year, he became a Music Education Major. These courses added other challenges that inspired Hart. He made many friends at Berklee, but the most important was Roy Hargrove. They spent three years touring the world and recording Hargrove’s first three records. Hart considers Hargrove to be his brother in life and music. He even used Hargrove’s first recording ‘For the First Time.’ Hart wanted to continue his education and study from some true masters of Jazz, so during those first few years on the road, he also worked on a Masters’s Degree at Queens College. There he had the opportunity to learn from the great Jimmy Heath and Donald Byrd. Hart felt blessed and honored when Mr. Heath produced his second recording, ‘Don’t You Know I Care.’ His 1997 release, ‘Here I Stand’ Impulse records, earned Hart a 1997 Grammy nomination for ‘Best Jazz Instrumental Solo.’ He has also been in much demand as a guest on over 100 recordings. Since then, Hart has recorded eight CDs as a leader. The latest, ‘Blessings” JLP Jazz Legacy productions. Hart balances his time as a full-time tenured Professor at The Aaron Copland School of Music, Queens College, as well as traveling on the road with his band, The Dave Holland Big band and The Dizzy Gillespie Big band. In his off time, he likes to practice martial arts. And listen to other styles of music for inspiration. He is constantly trying to get to higher levels on his horn and in his writing. 

Antonio Hart - saxophoneRichard Johnson - pianoAlex Apolo Ayala - bassJerome Jennings - drums When Antonio Hart was in ninth grade, the music and art programs were cut out of the public schools. Antonio was devastated because the one thing that made school enjoyable was taken away from him. Hart had a friend that attended the then-new Baltimore School for the Performing Arts and somehow got Antonio an audition. Most of the students that attended this school had been playing music all of their lives and had private instruction. This did not stop Antonio because he knew this would be the place for him. The night before the audition, Antonio spent hours on the phone with his friend learning a song from one of his music books. He did the best he could because he really could not read the level of music he was trying to play. The school was a hotel that had been made into one of the best learning institutions in the country. Hart was taken to a room to warm up, and then three teachers came in for the audition. He played his piece ‘Hungarian Dance #5’, then he played some scales for them. The teachers said thank you and that was it. Hart prayed every day, but he did not think he would get in. One week to the day, he received a transfer letter in the mail; he had been accepted! Hart considers this the beginning of his life as a young man and musician. This was such a change for Hart because this was a very serious school. The academics were hard and the music courses were very challenging. Hart found himself in summer school because he did not cut it that first year, but that was the only summer he went to summer school. After that adjustment period, Hart started to grow very fast. He gives much credit to his private teacher Chris Ford. ‘Mr. Ford took me from the beginning to a level much higher than the average high school student.’ At school, Hart played a lot of classical music but started to like Jazz. He felt more connected with Jazz because of the people he saw playing it and the chance to improvise.   Hart’s actual study of Jazz began at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. There, he studied with Bill Pierce, Andy McGhee, and Joe Viola. The three teachers gave him the foundation he needed to develop into a professional musician. Hart spent many hours in the library listening to all his favorite musicians and practicing and playing as much as possible. There were also many late hours in the practice room. Because of the lessons learned at the School for the Arts, Hart really thought it was essential to have a balance between music and academia, so in his sophomore year, he became a Music Education Major. These courses added other challenges that inspired Hart. He made many friends at Berklee, but the most important was Roy Hargrove. They spent three years touring the world and recording Hargrove’s first three records. Hart considers Hargrove to be his brother in life and music. He even used Hargrove’s first recording ‘For the First Time.’ Hart wanted to continue his education and study from some true masters of Jazz, so during those first few years on the road, he also worked on a Masters’s Degree at Queens College. There he had the opportunity to learn from the great Jimmy Heath and Donald Byrd. Hart felt blessed and honored when Mr. Heath produced his second recording, ‘Don’t You Know I Care.’ His 1997 release, ‘Here I Stand’ Impulse records, earned Hart a 1997 Grammy nomination for ‘Best Jazz Instrumental Solo.’ He has also been in much demand as a guest on over 100 recordings. Since then, Hart has recorded eight CDs as a leader. The latest, ‘Blessings” JLP Jazz Legacy productions. Hart balances his time as a full-time tenured Professor at The Aaron Copland School of Music, Queens College, as well as traveling on the road with his band, The Dave Holland Big band and The Dizzy Gillespie Big band. In his off time, he likes to practice martial arts. And listen to other styles of music for inspiration. He is constantly trying to get to higher levels on his horn and in his writing. 

Antonio Hart - saxophoneRichard Johnson - pianoAlex Apolo Ayala - bassJerome Jennings - drums When Antonio Hart was in ninth grade, the music and art programs were cut out of the public schools. Antonio was devastated because the one thing that made school enjoyable was taken away from him. Hart had a friend that attended the then-new Baltimore School for the Performing Arts and somehow got Antonio an audition. Most of the students that attended this school had been playing music all of their lives and had private instruction. This did not stop Antonio because he knew this would be the place for him. The night before the audition, Antonio spent hours on the phone with his friend learning a song from one of his music books. He did the best he could because he really could not read the level of music he was trying to play. The school was a hotel that had been made into one of the best learning institutions in the country. Hart was taken to a room to warm up, and then three teachers came in for the audition. He played his piece ‘Hungarian Dance #5’, then he played some scales for them. The teachers said thank you and that was it. Hart prayed every day, but he did not think he would get in. One week to the day, he received a transfer letter in the mail; he had been accepted! Hart considers this the beginning of his life as a young man and musician. This was such a change for Hart because this was a very serious school. The academics were hard and the music courses were very challenging. Hart found himself in summer school because he did not cut it that first year, but that was the only summer he went to summer school. After that adjustment period, Hart started to grow very fast. He gives much credit to his private teacher Chris Ford. ‘Mr. Ford took me from the beginning to a level much higher than the average high school student.’ At school, Hart played a lot of classical music but started to like Jazz. He felt more connected with Jazz because of the people he saw playing it and the chance to improvise.   Hart’s actual study of Jazz began at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. There, he studied with Bill Pierce, Andy McGhee, and Joe Viola. The three teachers gave him the foundation he needed to develop into a professional musician. Hart spent many hours in the library listening to all his favorite musicians and practicing and playing as much as possible. There were also many late hours in the practice room. Because of the lessons learned at the School for the Arts, Hart really thought it was essential to have a balance between music and academia, so in his sophomore year, he became a Music Education Major. These courses added other challenges that inspired Hart. He made many friends at Berklee, but the most important was Roy Hargrove. They spent three years touring the world and recording Hargrove’s first three records. Hart considers Hargrove to be his brother in life and music. He even used Hargrove’s first recording ‘For the First Time.’ Hart wanted to continue his education and study from some true masters of Jazz, so during those first few years on the road, he also worked on a Masters’s Degree at Queens College. There he had the opportunity to learn from the great Jimmy Heath and Donald Byrd. Hart felt blessed and honored when Mr. Heath produced his second recording, ‘Don’t You Know I Care.’ His 1997 release, ‘Here I Stand’ Impulse records, earned Hart a 1997 Grammy nomination for ‘Best Jazz Instrumental Solo.’ He has also been in much demand as a guest on over 100 recordings. Since then, Hart has recorded eight CDs as a leader. The latest, ‘Blessings” JLP Jazz Legacy productions. Hart balances his time as a full-time tenured Professor at The Aaron Copland School of Music, Queens College, as well as traveling on the road with his band, The Dave Holland Big band and The Dizzy Gillespie Big band. In his off time, he likes to practice martial arts. And listen to other styles of music for inspiration. He is constantly trying to get to higher levels on his horn and in his writing. 

Antonio Hart - saxophoneRichard Johnson - pianoAlex Apolo Ayala - bassJerome Jennings - drums When Antonio Hart was in ninth grade, the music and art programs were cut out of the public schools. Antonio was devastated because the one thing that made school enjoyable was taken away from him. Hart had a friend that attended the then-new Baltimore School for the Performing Arts and somehow got Antonio an audition. Most of the students that attended this school had been playing music all of their lives and had private instruction. This did not stop Antonio because he knew this would be the place for him. The night before the audition, Antonio spent hours on the phone with his friend learning a song from one of his music books. He did the best he could because he really could not read the level of music he was trying to play. The school was a hotel that had been made into one of the best learning institutions in the country. Hart was taken to a room to warm up, and then three teachers came in for the audition. He played his piece ‘Hungarian Dance #5’, then he played some scales for them. The teachers said thank you and that was it. Hart prayed every day, but he did not think he would get in. One week to the day, he received a transfer letter in the mail; he had been accepted! Hart considers this the beginning of his life as a young man and musician. This was such a change for Hart because this was a very serious school. The academics were hard and the music courses were very challenging. Hart found himself in summer school because he did not cut it that first year, but that was the only summer he went to summer school. After that adjustment period, Hart started to grow very fast. He gives much credit to his private teacher Chris Ford. ‘Mr. Ford took me from the beginning to a level much higher than the average high school student.’ At school, Hart played a lot of classical music but started to like Jazz. He felt more connected with Jazz because of the people he saw playing it and the chance to improvise.   Hart’s actual study of Jazz began at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. There, he studied with Bill Pierce, Andy McGhee, and Joe Viola. The three teachers gave him the foundation he needed to develop into a professional musician. Hart spent many hours in the library listening to all his favorite musicians and practicing and playing as much as possible. There were also many late hours in the practice room. Because of the lessons learned at the School for the Arts, Hart really thought it was essential to have a balance between music and academia, so in his sophomore year, he became a Music Education Major. These courses added other challenges that inspired Hart. He made many friends at Berklee, but the most important was Roy Hargrove. They spent three years touring the world and recording Hargrove’s first three records. Hart considers Hargrove to be his brother in life and music. He even used Hargrove’s first recording ‘For the First Time.’ Hart wanted to continue his education and study from some true masters of Jazz, so during those first few years on the road, he also worked on a Masters’s Degree at Queens College. There he had the opportunity to learn from the great Jimmy Heath and Donald Byrd. Hart felt blessed and honored when Mr. Heath produced his second recording, ‘Don’t You Know I Care.’ His 1997 release, ‘Here I Stand’ Impulse records, earned Hart a 1997 Grammy nomination for ‘Best Jazz Instrumental Solo.’ He has also been in much demand as a guest on over 100 recordings. Since then, Hart has recorded eight CDs as a leader. The latest, ‘Blessings” JLP Jazz Legacy productions. Hart balances his time as a full-time tenured Professor at The Aaron Copland School of Music, Queens College, as well as traveling on the road with his band, The Dave Holland Big band and The Dizzy Gillespie Big band. In his off time, he likes to practice martial arts. And listen to other styles of music for inspiration. He is constantly trying to get to higher levels on his horn and in his writing. 

Mark Feldman - violin Steve Million - piano Eric Hochberg - bass Bob Rummage - drums In 1988, Steve Million was a semifinalist in the internationally renowned Thelonious Monk Piano Competition; that same year, the Missouri native moved to Chicago and never looked back. The music of Monk continued to play an important role in his career. In the 90s he formed a two-keyboard band called Monk’s Dream with Mike Kocour and Robert Shy; in the 2000s created the humor-filled band Thelonious Moog with Joe "Guido" Welsh; and is now part of a piano duo with esteemed pianist Jeremy Kahn called Double Monk that performs the music of Monk with their arrangements and sometimes with the modern dancer Ariane Dolan. Around 2004 Million began a rewarding career teaching privately at the respected Merit School of Music, where he is now Jazz Chair, runs classes in jazz piano, jazz ensembles, and improvisation. In addition to playing his regular nightly gig at the popular downtown restaurant Catch 35. Million has recorded three CDs for Palmetto Records: Million to One (1995), Thanks A Million (1997), and Truth Is (1999) featuring such artists as trumpet great Randy Brecker, saxists Chris Potter and Dick Oatts, and legendary bassist Michael Moore. He has also released a trio album, Poetic Necessities (BluJazz, 2002), and a solo album, Remembering The Way Home (Origin, 2008). 

Bob Lark is recognized regionally, nationally and internationally as a contemporary jazz educator and performer of integrity. His approach to pedagogy and rehearsal techniques has been noted by participation in professional conferences; publication of articles; compact disc recordings as both a performer and ensemble director; and the direction of numerous student honors ensembles. Down Beat magazine recognized Bob’s work in 2010 with their Jazz Education Achievement Award. In speaking of Lark, jazz icon Clark Terry stated, “He’s a very good trumpet player, a very good musician. He’s paid his dues.” Recordings on the Jazzed Media label include those by The Bob Lark/Phil Woods Quintet, Bob Lark and his Alumni Big Band, and Bob Lark and Friends, with Phil Woods, Rufus Reid, and Jim McNeely. Bob’s playing and writing are also featured on the CD recordings Until You and First Steps on the Hallway label. He is an exclusive Yamaha Performing Artist. Bob is an active clinician, soloist and guest conductor.He has served as host for the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition, is the past-president of the Illinois Unit of the International Association for Jazz Education, and has chaired the International Trumpet Guild jazz improvisation competition.For thirty-one years, Dr. Lark served as Professor of Music and Director of Jazz studies at DePaul University, in Chicago. Currently, Bob is the Director of Jazz Studies at Valparaiso University in Indiana.He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in performance from the University of North Texas, having earlier earned a Master’s degree from that school, and a Bachelor of Music Education degree from The Ohio State University. 

One of the world’s preeminent jazz innovators, trombonist and seashellist Steve Turre, has consistently won both the Readers’ and Critics’ polls in JazzTimes, Downbeat, and Jazziz for Best Trombone and for Best Miscellaneous Instrumentalist (shells). Turre was born to Mexican-American parents and grew up in the San Francisco Bay area where he absorbed daily doses of mariachi, blues and jazz. While attending Sacramento State University, he joined the Escovedo Brothers salsa band, which began his career-long involvement with that genre. In 1972 Steve Turre’s career picked up momentum when Ray Charles hired him to go on tour. A year later Turre’s mentor Woody Shaw brought him into Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. After his tenure with Blakey, Turre went on to work with a diverse list of musicians from the jazz, Latin, and pop worlds, including Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, J.J. Johnson, Herbie Hancock, Lester Bowie, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Van Morrison, Pharoah Sanders, Horace Silver, Max Roach, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. The latter introduced hum to the seashell as an instrument. Soon after that, while touring in Mexico City with Woody Shaw, Turre’s relatives informed him that his ancestors similarly played the shells. Since then, Turre has incorporated seashells into his diverse musical style. In addition to performing as a member of the Saturday Night Live Band since 1984, Turre leads several different ensembles. Sanctified Shells utilizes the seashell in a larger context, transforming his horn section into a “shell choir”. Turre’s Spring 1999 Verve release, Lotus Flower, showcases his Sextet With Strings. The recording explores many great standards and original compositions arranged by Turre for a unique instrumentation of trombone and shells, violin, cello, piano, bass and drums. Turre’s quartet and quintet provide a setting based in tradition and stretching the limits conceptually and stylistically. In the Summer of 2000, Telarc released In The Spur of the Moment. This recording features Steve with three different quartets, each with a different and distinct master pianist: Ray Charles, Chucho Valdes, and Stephen Scott. Turre’s self-titled Verve release pioneers a unique artistic vision, drawing upon jazz, Afro-Cuban, and Brazilian sources. This innovative recording also features Cassandra Wilson, Randy Brecker, Graciela, Mongo Santamaria and J.J. Johnson. Previously Turre recorded Right There and Rhythm Within, featuring Herbie Hancock, Jon Faddis, Pharoah Sanders, and Sanctified Shells, on Verve’s subsidiary label, Antilles. Steve Turre continually evolves as a musician and arranger. He has a strong command of all musical genres and when it comes to his distinct brand of jazz, he always keeps one foot in the past and one in the future. 

One of the world’s preeminent jazz innovators, trombonist and seashellist Steve Turre, has consistently won both the Readers’ and Critics’ polls in JazzTimes, Downbeat, and Jazziz for Best Trombone and for Best Miscellaneous Instrumentalist (shells). Turre was born to Mexican-American parents and grew up in the San Francisco Bay area where he absorbed daily doses of mariachi, blues and jazz. While attending Sacramento State University, he joined the Escovedo Brothers salsa band, which began his career-long involvement with that genre. In 1972 Steve Turre’s career picked up momentum when Ray Charles hired him to go on tour. A year later Turre’s mentor Woody Shaw brought him into Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. After his tenure with Blakey, Turre went on to work with a diverse list of musicians from the jazz, Latin, and pop worlds, including Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, J.J. Johnson, Herbie Hancock, Lester Bowie, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Van Morrison, Pharoah Sanders, Horace Silver, Max Roach, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. The latter introduced hum to the seashell as an instrument. Soon after that, while touring in Mexico City with Woody Shaw, Turre’s relatives informed him that his ancestors similarly played the shells. Since then, Turre has incorporated seashells into his diverse musical style. In addition to performing as a member of the Saturday Night Live Band since 1984, Turre leads several different ensembles. Sanctified Shells utilizes the seashell in a larger context, transforming his horn section into a “shell choir”. Turre’s Spring 1999 Verve release, Lotus Flower, showcases his Sextet With Strings. The recording explores many great standards and original compositions arranged by Turre for a unique instrumentation of trombone and shells, violin, cello, piano, bass and drums. Turre’s quartet and quintet provide a setting based in tradition and stretching the limits conceptually and stylistically. In the Summer of 2000, Telarc released In The Spur of the Moment. This recording features Steve with three different quartets, each with a different and distinct master pianist: Ray Charles, Chucho Valdes, and Stephen Scott. Turre’s self-titled Verve release pioneers a unique artistic vision, drawing upon jazz, Afro-Cuban, and Brazilian sources. This innovative recording also features Cassandra Wilson, Randy Brecker, Graciela, Mongo Santamaria and J.J. Johnson. Previously Turre recorded Right There and Rhythm Within, featuring Herbie Hancock, Jon Faddis, Pharoah Sanders, and Sanctified Shells, on Verve’s subsidiary label, Antilles. Steve Turre continually evolves as a musician and arranger. He has a strong command of all musical genres and when it comes to his distinct brand of jazz, he always keeps one foot in the past and one in the future. 

One of the world’s preeminent jazz innovators, trombonist and seashellist Steve Turre, has consistently won both the Readers’ and Critics’ polls in JazzTimes, Downbeat, and Jazziz for Best Trombone and for Best Miscellaneous Instrumentalist (shells). Turre was born to Mexican-American parents and grew up in the San Francisco Bay area where he absorbed daily doses of mariachi, blues and jazz. While attending Sacramento State University, he joined the Escovedo Brothers salsa band, which began his career-long involvement with that genre. In 1972 Steve Turre’s career picked up momentum when Ray Charles hired him to go on tour. A year later Turre’s mentor Woody Shaw brought him into Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. After his tenure with Blakey, Turre went on to work with a diverse list of musicians from the jazz, Latin, and pop worlds, including Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, J.J. Johnson, Herbie Hancock, Lester Bowie, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Van Morrison, Pharoah Sanders, Horace Silver, Max Roach, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. The latter introduced hum to the seashell as an instrument. Soon after that, while touring in Mexico City with Woody Shaw, Turre’s relatives informed him that his ancestors similarly played the shells. Since then, Turre has incorporated seashells into his diverse musical style. In addition to performing as a member of the Saturday Night Live Band since 1984, Turre leads several different ensembles. Sanctified Shells utilizes the seashell in a larger context, transforming his horn section into a “shell choir”. Turre’s Spring 1999 Verve release, Lotus Flower, showcases his Sextet With Strings. The recording explores many great standards and original compositions arranged by Turre for a unique instrumentation of trombone and shells, violin, cello, piano, bass and drums. Turre’s quartet and quintet provide a setting based in tradition and stretching the limits conceptually and stylistically. In the Summer of 2000, Telarc released In The Spur of the Moment. This recording features Steve with three different quartets, each with a different and distinct master pianist: Ray Charles, Chucho Valdes, and Stephen Scott. Turre’s self-titled Verve release pioneers a unique artistic vision, drawing upon jazz, Afro-Cuban, and Brazilian sources. This innovative recording also features Cassandra Wilson, Randy Brecker, Graciela, Mongo Santamaria and J.J. Johnson. Previously Turre recorded Right There and Rhythm Within, featuring Herbie Hancock, Jon Faddis, Pharoah Sanders, and Sanctified Shells, on Verve’s subsidiary label, Antilles. Steve Turre continually evolves as a musician and arranger. He has a strong command of all musical genres and when it comes to his distinct brand of jazz, he always keeps one foot in the past and one in the future. 

One of the world’s preeminent jazz innovators, trombonist and seashellist Steve Turre, has consistently won both the Readers’ and Critics’ polls in JazzTimes, Downbeat, and Jazziz for Best Trombone and for Best Miscellaneous Instrumentalist (shells). Turre was born to Mexican-American parents and grew up in the San Francisco Bay area where he absorbed daily doses of mariachi, blues and jazz. While attending Sacramento State University, he joined the Escovedo Brothers salsa band, which began his career-long involvement with that genre. In 1972 Steve Turre’s career picked up momentum when Ray Charles hired him to go on tour. A year later Turre’s mentor Woody Shaw brought him into Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. After his tenure with Blakey, Turre went on to work with a diverse list of musicians from the jazz, Latin, and pop worlds, including Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, J.J. Johnson, Herbie Hancock, Lester Bowie, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Van Morrison, Pharoah Sanders, Horace Silver, Max Roach, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. The latter introduced hum to the seashell as an instrument. Soon after that, while touring in Mexico City with Woody Shaw, Turre’s relatives informed him that his ancestors similarly played the shells. Since then, Turre has incorporated seashells into his diverse musical style. In addition to performing as a member of the Saturday Night Live Band since 1984, Turre leads several different ensembles. Sanctified Shells utilizes the seashell in a larger context, transforming his horn section into a “shell choir”. Turre’s Spring 1999 Verve release, Lotus Flower, showcases his Sextet With Strings. The recording explores many great standards and original compositions arranged by Turre for a unique instrumentation of trombone and shells, violin, cello, piano, bass and drums. Turre’s quartet and quintet provide a setting based in tradition and stretching the limits conceptually and stylistically. In the Summer of 2000, Telarc released In The Spur of the Moment. This recording features Steve with three different quartets, each with a different and distinct master pianist: Ray Charles, Chucho Valdes, and Stephen Scott. Turre’s self-titled Verve release pioneers a unique artistic vision, drawing upon jazz, Afro-Cuban, and Brazilian sources. This innovative recording also features Cassandra Wilson, Randy Brecker, Graciela, Mongo Santamaria and J.J. Johnson. Previously Turre recorded Right There and Rhythm Within, featuring Herbie Hancock, Jon Faddis, Pharoah Sanders, and Sanctified Shells, on Verve’s subsidiary label, Antilles. Steve Turre continually evolves as a musician and arranger. He has a strong command of all musical genres and when it comes to his distinct brand of jazz, he always keeps one foot in the past and one in the future. 

The NIU Jazz Ensemble is the Laboratory Jazz Big Band at NIU. This group performs advanced and intermediate material covering a wide variety of jazz styles, including new works composed and/or arranged by NIU faculty and students. We will have a wonderful array of NIU Jazz Ensemble/Lab Band alumni and faculty guests: Robert Chappell, Juan Pastor, John Tate, Colin Dorion, Karli Bunn, Andrew Clark, Daisuke Kamiuchi, Ryan Nyther, Lucas Gillan, Jacob Slocum, Frank McKearn, Rob Nordli, Paul Barrilles, Steve Duke and many more TBA. Music by Thad Jones, Duke Ellington, Bob Brookmeyer, Benny Golson, Horace Silver, Bob Mintzer, Les Hooper, etc... 

A Chicago native, Isabella is an actor, vocalist, pianist, music director, and conductor who has had the great honor of sharing her artistry on stage and screen both at home and internationally.  Notable performances include: singing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall and Ravinia, performing with her quartet at the Chicago Jazz Festival, and three performance tours across Europe.   Isabella is a proud alum of The Second City, Acting Studio Chicago, and the Jazz Institute of Chicago. Additional studies include the Chicago College of Performing Arts, and the Jacobs School of Music. She is a member of the Chicago Federation of Musicians and is currently working on her debut record. 

In describing the Black music tradition, Pharoah Sanders once remarked to Bernice Johnson Reagon “to me, it’s all spiritual music.” The musical journey from blues to gospel and “jazz” and back is more natural than these categorical separations can ever be. Like the great practitioners of the blues and gospel, Joel Ross is interested in the story, in the way that it can reveal the divine promise that life need not forever be what it has been. His chosen medium is a sextet. His message is love others and sacrifice the self. Service to others is the best way to live love and to be Christlike. Gospel Music is service music. Service is what we call worship. “Playing an instrument is a form of worship, and I’ve been worshipping all my life,” said Dizzy Gillepsie. And like Diz, Ross is committed to worship, represented in and through his music. In this practice of living, “there must be space for everyone,” Ross explains. “If there's anything I do talk to the band about, it's about that, making sure we're making space for everyone and supporting everyone. Because that's what we're supposed to do.” An homage to an array of influences that includes Fred Hammond, Yolanda Adams, Kirk Franklin, and the duo Mary Mary, who declared that it was "the God in me,” Gospel Music points to the historic good news foretold and revealed in scripture, now available to all if we could simply figure out how to move past our destructive tendencies and into renewed, supporting relations with each other. For Ross, “if we treat each other in this way, then this is the best result for humanity.” His fifth outing as leader for Blue Note, Gospel Music is both a departure and not. Ross wants us to listen for the ways that the band practices what some of our best minds have preached. He wants us to achieve the kind of clarity he has achieved in his sound, where the music remains “technically difficult.” But with the lessons of The Parable of the Poet and nublues in tow, Good Vibes has moved into a place where the complex can be offered more clearly. The complex can offer sound as meditative space for us to reconsider ourselves as we relate to others. And it can relay the story of faith. Ross’s message is reflected in the way he leads a band and creates space for them sonically: “life is what is lived in Christ to benefit others that causes our living to not be in vain.”. Gospel Music revisits the intricacy of the earlier records and the directness and accessibility of the later, producing a sound that is unmistakably Joel Ross while reintroducing himself and the good news simultaneously. It is released in a moment where he has been deepening his study and exploration into the theological and historical depths of his faith over the last several years. Returning to some of his older unreleased compositions and seeing them in light of new experiences, he has created an album which reveals more of his person. “This is probably the boldest example of trying to share what I believe is the good news as well as in homage to where I'm coming from,” he explains. This identity is equally grounded in the world of jazz pedagogy as it is in the sounds of the Black church in Chicago. While he gravitated toward the former, Chicago gospel was an inescapable element of the sonic community that shaped him. “I'm coming from the Black church in Chicago, playing gospel music,” Ross reminds us. At home, Ross’s father, a teacher and counselor in the church, repeated to him every time a James Cleveland composition played, “Now, that’s your cousin.” That familial and familiar invocation was on display during a recent Jazz Gallery residency, where while openly improvising on the Hammond B3 alongside a coterie of friends, Ross would find himself “playing worship or reverent music” in those unplanned moments where something akin to spirit took over. Similarly, the task on Gospel Music was to trouble the distinction between written and spontaneous composition (improvisation): “I want the lines to be blurred.” In troubling those waters, Gospel Music adds another saxophone voice to the crew of Good Vibes in the form of Josh Johnson on alto. The two-saxophone format—with Johnson joining Parables veteran and tenor saxophonist Maria Grand—allowed Ross to “float over here and do this thing, maybe play some of the bassline, or maybe color with some chords. They hold down the melody which allows me to be free.” Rounding out the ensemble are mainstays Jeremy Corren on piano, Kanoa Mendenhall on bass, and Jeremy Dutton on drums, a group whose chemistry subtends Ross’s freedom to explore, but to also be buoyed in that exploration. “I'm constantly making music with the same people over and over again,” he explains. “I naturally gravitate towards a feeling of familiarity, feeling like a family.” Ross describes his worldview as a “Christ-centered love of others.” This is the message in the making of the music even when it is not explicitly detailed. Gospel Music follows the arc of the grand biblical story. Each composition carries the emotional weight of the story of creation, the fall, and salvation, corresponding to biblical texts that Ross includes in the liner notes. At the center of it is the desire that we meditate on the meaning of the ultimate sacrifice that defines a faith in Christ that calls on its practitioners to love God and others. Playing in this band mirrors that very attitude. The newfound conceptual clarity accentuates the first half of the proceedings before a break of sorts occurs with the tune, “A Little Love Goes a Long Way,” which was used to close sets in the live shows. Here it serves as an opening to the only compositions that Ross did not pen. “Praise To You, Lord Jesus Christ” arrives first. It is a gospel acclamation deployed during Lent that features and was introduced to him by his wife, trumpeter Laura Bibbs on vocals. That tune opens the way for “Calvary,” a traditional spiritual, performed with Ekep Nkwelle, one of the music’s freshest voices. With this sequence, Ross takes us to the moment and act that is foundational to the faith: the execution and resurrection of Jesus. From here, “The Giver” explores what it means to give oneself over to a purpose with lyrics drawn from the James Baldwin poem “The Giver (for Berdis)” sung by Andy Louis. Giving becomes another premise through which the album works and through which the band works together to produce this sound. In putting together this variation of Good Vibes and recording this music, Ross was convicted. “What’s our purpose here?” he asked. “This isn't just your traditional, we gonna play our heads and take our solos. No, what are we doing? What is the purpose of this song, this piece? What are we doing together? How are we supporting whatever this piece calls for?” The album closes with a disquisition on the newness made possible by faith, but that newness is a return to the eternal with which the album began. Ross follows Sanders, Reagon, Baldwin, and so many others who might have all agreed that the point of it all was to live the lives we sing about in our songs. Gospel Music is about that life and it is calling us into these more sound practices of and for living. 

In describing the Black music tradition, Pharoah Sanders once remarked to Bernice Johnson Reagon “to me, it’s all spiritual music.” The musical journey from blues to gospel and “jazz” and back is more natural than these categorical separations can ever be. Like the great practitioners of the blues and gospel, Joel Ross is interested in the story, in the way that it can reveal the divine promise that life need not forever be what it has been. His chosen medium is a sextet. His message is love others and sacrifice the self. Service to others is the best way to live love and to be Christlike. Gospel Music is service music. Service is what we call worship. “Playing an instrument is a form of worship, and I’ve been worshipping all my life,” said Dizzy Gillepsie. And like Diz, Ross is committed to worship, represented in and through his music. In this practice of living, “there must be space for everyone,” Ross explains. “If there's anything I do talk to the band about, it's about that, making sure we're making space for everyone and supporting everyone. Because that's what we're supposed to do.” An homage to an array of influences that includes Fred Hammond, Yolanda Adams, Kirk Franklin, and the duo Mary Mary, who declared that it was "the God in me,” Gospel Music points to the historic good news foretold and revealed in scripture, now available to all if we could simply figure out how to move past our destructive tendencies and into renewed, supporting relations with each other. For Ross, “if we treat each other in this way, then this is the best result for humanity.” His fifth outing as leader for Blue Note, Gospel Music is both a departure and not. Ross wants us to listen for the ways that the band practices what some of our best minds have preached. He wants us to achieve the kind of clarity he has achieved in his sound, where the music remains “technically difficult.” But with the lessons of The Parable of the Poet and nublues in tow, Good Vibes has moved into a place where the complex can be offered more clearly. The complex can offer sound as meditative space for us to reconsider ourselves as we relate to others. And it can relay the story of faith. Ross’s message is reflected in the way he leads a band and creates space for them sonically: “life is what is lived in Christ to benefit others that causes our living to not be in vain.”. Gospel Music revisits the intricacy of the earlier records and the directness and accessibility of the later, producing a sound that is unmistakably Joel Ross while reintroducing himself and the good news simultaneously. It is released in a moment where he has been deepening his study and exploration into the theological and historical depths of his faith over the last several years. Returning to some of his older unreleased compositions and seeing them in light of new experiences, he has created an album which reveals more of his person. “This is probably the boldest example of trying to share what I believe is the good news as well as in homage to where I'm coming from,” he explains. This identity is equally grounded in the world of jazz pedagogy as it is in the sounds of the Black church in Chicago. While he gravitated toward the former, Chicago gospel was an inescapable element of the sonic community that shaped him. “I'm coming from the Black church in Chicago, playing gospel music,” Ross reminds us. At home, Ross’s father, a teacher and counselor in the church, repeated to him every time a James Cleveland composition played, “Now, that’s your cousin.” That familial and familiar invocation was on display during a recent Jazz Gallery residency, where while openly improvising on the Hammond B3 alongside a coterie of friends, Ross would find himself “playing worship or reverent music” in those unplanned moments where something akin to spirit took over. Similarly, the task on Gospel Music was to trouble the distinction between written and spontaneous composition (improvisation): “I want the lines to be blurred.” In troubling those waters, Gospel Music adds another saxophone voice to the crew of Good Vibes in the form of Josh Johnson on alto. The two-saxophone format—with Johnson joining Parables veteran and tenor saxophonist Maria Grand—allowed Ross to “float over here and do this thing, maybe play some of the bassline, or maybe color with some chords. They hold down the melody which allows me to be free.” Rounding out the ensemble are mainstays Jeremy Corren on piano, Kanoa Mendenhall on bass, and Jeremy Dutton on drums, a group whose chemistry subtends Ross’s freedom to explore, but to also be buoyed in that exploration. “I'm constantly making music with the same people over and over again,” he explains. “I naturally gravitate towards a feeling of familiarity, feeling like a family.” Ross describes his worldview as a “Christ-centered love of others.” This is the message in the making of the music even when it is not explicitly detailed. Gospel Music follows the arc of the grand biblical story. Each composition carries the emotional weight of the story of creation, the fall, and salvation, corresponding to biblical texts that Ross includes in the liner notes. At the center of it is the desire that we meditate on the meaning of the ultimate sacrifice that defines a faith in Christ that calls on its practitioners to love God and others. Playing in this band mirrors that very attitude. The newfound conceptual clarity accentuates the first half of the proceedings before a break of sorts occurs with the tune, “A Little Love Goes a Long Way,” which was used to close sets in the live shows. Here it serves as an opening to the only compositions that Ross did not pen. “Praise To You, Lord Jesus Christ” arrives first. It is a gospel acclamation deployed during Lent that features and was introduced to him by his wife, trumpeter Laura Bibbs on vocals. That tune opens the way for “Calvary,” a traditional spiritual, performed with Ekep Nkwelle, one of the music’s freshest voices. With this sequence, Ross takes us to the moment and act that is foundational to the faith: the execution and resurrection of Jesus. From here, “The Giver” explores what it means to give oneself over to a purpose with lyrics drawn from the James Baldwin poem “The Giver (for Berdis)” sung by Andy Louis. Giving becomes another premise through which the album works and through which the band works together to produce this sound. In putting together this variation of Good Vibes and recording this music, Ross was convicted. “What’s our purpose here?” he asked. “This isn't just your traditional, we gonna play our heads and take our solos. No, what are we doing? What is the purpose of this song, this piece? What are we doing together? How are we supporting whatever this piece calls for?” The album closes with a disquisition on the newness made possible by faith, but that newness is a return to the eternal with which the album began. Ross follows Sanders, Reagon, Baldwin, and so many others who might have all agreed that the point of it all was to live the lives we sing about in our songs. Gospel Music is about that life and it is calling us into these more sound practices of and for living. 

In describing the Black music tradition, Pharoah Sanders once remarked to Bernice Johnson Reagon “to me, it’s all spiritual music.” The musical journey from blues to gospel and “jazz” and back is more natural than these categorical separations can ever be. Like the great practitioners of the blues and gospel, Joel Ross is interested in the story, in the way that it can reveal the divine promise that life need not forever be what it has been. His chosen medium is a sextet. His message is love others and sacrifice the self. Service to others is the best way to live love and to be Christlike. Gospel Music is service music. Service is what we call worship. “Playing an instrument is a form of worship, and I’ve been worshipping all my life,” said Dizzy Gillepsie. And like Diz, Ross is committed to worship, represented in and through his music. In this practice of living, “there must be space for everyone,” Ross explains. “If there's anything I do talk to the band about, it's about that, making sure we're making space for everyone and supporting everyone. Because that's what we're supposed to do.” An homage to an array of influences that includes Fred Hammond, Yolanda Adams, Kirk Franklin, and the duo Mary Mary, who declared that it was "the God in me,” Gospel Music points to the historic good news foretold and revealed in scripture, now available to all if we could simply figure out how to move past our destructive tendencies and into renewed, supporting relations with each other. For Ross, “if we treat each other in this way, then this is the best result for humanity.” His fifth outing as leader for Blue Note, Gospel Music is both a departure and not. Ross wants us to listen for the ways that the band practices what some of our best minds have preached. He wants us to achieve the kind of clarity he has achieved in his sound, where the music remains “technically difficult.” But with the lessons of The Parable of the Poet and nublues in tow, Good Vibes has moved into a place where the complex can be offered more clearly. The complex can offer sound as meditative space for us to reconsider ourselves as we relate to others. And it can relay the story of faith. Ross’s message is reflected in the way he leads a band and creates space for them sonically: “life is what is lived in Christ to benefit others that causes our living to not be in vain.”. Gospel Music revisits the intricacy of the earlier records and the directness and accessibility of the later, producing a sound that is unmistakably Joel Ross while reintroducing himself and the good news simultaneously. It is released in a moment where he has been deepening his study and exploration into the theological and historical depths of his faith over the last several years. Returning to some of his older unreleased compositions and seeing them in light of new experiences, he has created an album which reveals more of his person. “This is probably the boldest example of trying to share what I believe is the good news as well as in homage to where I'm coming from,” he explains. This identity is equally grounded in the world of jazz pedagogy as it is in the sounds of the Black church in Chicago. While he gravitated toward the former, Chicago gospel was an inescapable element of the sonic community that shaped him. “I'm coming from the Black church in Chicago, playing gospel music,” Ross reminds us. At home, Ross’s father, a teacher and counselor in the church, repeated to him every time a James Cleveland composition played, “Now, that’s your cousin.” That familial and familiar invocation was on display during a recent Jazz Gallery residency, where while openly improvising on the Hammond B3 alongside a coterie of friends, Ross would find himself “playing worship or reverent music” in those unplanned moments where something akin to spirit took over. Similarly, the task on Gospel Music was to trouble the distinction between written and spontaneous composition (improvisation): “I want the lines to be blurred.” In troubling those waters, Gospel Music adds another saxophone voice to the crew of Good Vibes in the form of Josh Johnson on alto. The two-saxophone format—with Johnson joining Parables veteran and tenor saxophonist Maria Grand—allowed Ross to “float over here and do this thing, maybe play some of the bassline, or maybe color with some chords. They hold down the melody which allows me to be free.” Rounding out the ensemble are mainstays Jeremy Corren on piano, Kanoa Mendenhall on bass, and Jeremy Dutton on drums, a group whose chemistry subtends Ross’s freedom to explore, but to also be buoyed in that exploration. “I'm constantly making music with the same people over and over again,” he explains. “I naturally gravitate towards a feeling of familiarity, feeling like a family.” Ross describes his worldview as a “Christ-centered love of others.” This is the message in the making of the music even when it is not explicitly detailed. Gospel Music follows the arc of the grand biblical story. Each composition carries the emotional weight of the story of creation, the fall, and salvation, corresponding to biblical texts that Ross includes in the liner notes. At the center of it is the desire that we meditate on the meaning of the ultimate sacrifice that defines a faith in Christ that calls on its practitioners to love God and others. Playing in this band mirrors that very attitude. The newfound conceptual clarity accentuates the first half of the proceedings before a break of sorts occurs with the tune, “A Little Love Goes a Long Way,” which was used to close sets in the live shows. Here it serves as an opening to the only compositions that Ross did not pen. “Praise To You, Lord Jesus Christ” arrives first. It is a gospel acclamation deployed during Lent that features and was introduced to him by his wife, trumpeter Laura Bibbs on vocals. That tune opens the way for “Calvary,” a traditional spiritual, performed with Ekep Nkwelle, one of the music’s freshest voices. With this sequence, Ross takes us to the moment and act that is foundational to the faith: the execution and resurrection of Jesus. From here, “The Giver” explores what it means to give oneself over to a purpose with lyrics drawn from the James Baldwin poem “The Giver (for Berdis)” sung by Andy Louis. Giving becomes another premise through which the album works and through which the band works together to produce this sound. In putting together this variation of Good Vibes and recording this music, Ross was convicted. “What’s our purpose here?” he asked. “This isn't just your traditional, we gonna play our heads and take our solos. No, what are we doing? What is the purpose of this song, this piece? What are we doing together? How are we supporting whatever this piece calls for?” The album closes with a disquisition on the newness made possible by faith, but that newness is a return to the eternal with which the album began. Ross follows Sanders, Reagon, Baldwin, and so many others who might have all agreed that the point of it all was to live the lives we sing about in our songs. Gospel Music is about that life and it is calling us into these more sound practices of and for living. 

In describing the Black music tradition, Pharoah Sanders once remarked to Bernice Johnson Reagon “to me, it’s all spiritual music.” The musical journey from blues to gospel and “jazz” and back is more natural than these categorical separations can ever be. Like the great practitioners of the blues and gospel, Joel Ross is interested in the story, in the way that it can reveal the divine promise that life need not forever be what it has been. His chosen medium is a sextet. His message is love others and sacrifice the self. Service to others is the best way to live love and to be Christlike. Gospel Music is service music. Service is what we call worship. “Playing an instrument is a form of worship, and I’ve been worshipping all my life,” said Dizzy Gillepsie. And like Diz, Ross is committed to worship, represented in and through his music. In this practice of living, “there must be space for everyone,” Ross explains. “If there's anything I do talk to the band about, it's about that, making sure we're making space for everyone and supporting everyone. Because that's what we're supposed to do.” An homage to an array of influences that includes Fred Hammond, Yolanda Adams, Kirk Franklin, and the duo Mary Mary, who declared that it was "the God in me,” Gospel Music points to the historic good news foretold and revealed in scripture, now available to all if we could simply figure out how to move past our destructive tendencies and into renewed, supporting relations with each other. For Ross, “if we treat each other in this way, then this is the best result for humanity.” His fifth outing as leader for Blue Note, Gospel Music is both a departure and not. Ross wants us to listen for the ways that the band practices what some of our best minds have preached. He wants us to achieve the kind of clarity he has achieved in his sound, where the music remains “technically difficult.” But with the lessons of The Parable of the Poet and nublues in tow, Good Vibes has moved into a place where the complex can be offered more clearly. The complex can offer sound as meditative space for us to reconsider ourselves as we relate to others. And it can relay the story of faith. Ross’s message is reflected in the way he leads a band and creates space for them sonically: “life is what is lived in Christ to benefit others that causes our living to not be in vain.”. Gospel Music revisits the intricacy of the earlier records and the directness and accessibility of the later, producing a sound that is unmistakably Joel Ross while reintroducing himself and the good news simultaneously. It is released in a moment where he has been deepening his study and exploration into the theological and historical depths of his faith over the last several years. Returning to some of his older unreleased compositions and seeing them in light of new experiences, he has created an album which reveals more of his person. “This is probably the boldest example of trying to share what I believe is the good news as well as in homage to where I'm coming from,” he explains. This identity is equally grounded in the world of jazz pedagogy as it is in the sounds of the Black church in Chicago. While he gravitated toward the former, Chicago gospel was an inescapable element of the sonic community that shaped him. “I'm coming from the Black church in Chicago, playing gospel music,” Ross reminds us. At home, Ross’s father, a teacher and counselor in the church, repeated to him every time a James Cleveland composition played, “Now, that’s your cousin.” That familial and familiar invocation was on display during a recent Jazz Gallery residency, where while openly improvising on the Hammond B3 alongside a coterie of friends, Ross would find himself “playing worship or reverent music” in those unplanned moments where something akin to spirit took over. Similarly, the task on Gospel Music was to trouble the distinction between written and spontaneous composition (improvisation): “I want the lines to be blurred.” In troubling those waters, Gospel Music adds another saxophone voice to the crew of Good Vibes in the form of Josh Johnson on alto. The two-saxophone format—with Johnson joining Parables veteran and tenor saxophonist Maria Grand—allowed Ross to “float over here and do this thing, maybe play some of the bassline, or maybe color with some chords. They hold down the melody which allows me to be free.” Rounding out the ensemble are mainstays Jeremy Corren on piano, Kanoa Mendenhall on bass, and Jeremy Dutton on drums, a group whose chemistry subtends Ross’s freedom to explore, but to also be buoyed in that exploration. “I'm constantly making music with the same people over and over again,” he explains. “I naturally gravitate towards a feeling of familiarity, feeling like a family.” Ross describes his worldview as a “Christ-centered love of others.” This is the message in the making of the music even when it is not explicitly detailed. Gospel Music follows the arc of the grand biblical story. Each composition carries the emotional weight of the story of creation, the fall, and salvation, corresponding to biblical texts that Ross includes in the liner notes. At the center of it is the desire that we meditate on the meaning of the ultimate sacrifice that defines a faith in Christ that calls on its practitioners to love God and others. Playing in this band mirrors that very attitude. The newfound conceptual clarity accentuates the first half of the proceedings before a break of sorts occurs with the tune, “A Little Love Goes a Long Way,” which was used to close sets in the live shows. Here it serves as an opening to the only compositions that Ross did not pen. “Praise To You, Lord Jesus Christ” arrives first. It is a gospel acclamation deployed during Lent that features and was introduced to him by his wife, trumpeter Laura Bibbs on vocals. That tune opens the way for “Calvary,” a traditional spiritual, performed with Ekep Nkwelle, one of the music’s freshest voices. With this sequence, Ross takes us to the moment and act that is foundational to the faith: the execution and resurrection of Jesus. From here, “The Giver” explores what it means to give oneself over to a purpose with lyrics drawn from the James Baldwin poem “The Giver (for Berdis)” sung by Andy Louis. Giving becomes another premise through which the album works and through which the band works together to produce this sound. In putting together this variation of Good Vibes and recording this music, Ross was convicted. “What’s our purpose here?” he asked. “This isn't just your traditional, we gonna play our heads and take our solos. No, what are we doing? What is the purpose of this song, this piece? What are we doing together? How are we supporting whatever this piece calls for?” The album closes with a disquisition on the newness made possible by faith, but that newness is a return to the eternal with which the album began. Ross follows Sanders, Reagon, Baldwin, and so many others who might have all agreed that the point of it all was to live the lives we sing about in our songs. Gospel Music is about that life and it is calling us into these more sound practices of and for living. 

Dan Kaufman has emerged as a leading and promising young voice in Jazz Piano. Dan’s playing is adventurous and dynamic while firmly rooted in the jazz tradition. As a versatile and sensitive sideman , he has performed for audiences around the world, with many of the most prominent figures in jazz. From Jimmy Heath, Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride and Mark Turner. He is also an accomplished composer and arranger.  Kaufman began classical piano studies at age four and was working professionally as a teenager. He then moved to Boston to attend the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Fred Hersch and Danilo Perez. He joined the Grammy Nominated group, The Either/Orchestra, and quickly became on of the most in demand young talents on the Boston scene, working extensively with Jeremy Pelt, Miguel Zenon, and Bob Moses among others. After a brief stint as a member of the highly selective Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, Kaufman moved to New York to attend the Juilliard School on a full scholarship for the inaugural class of jazz studies where he studied with Kenny Barron. Kaufman has established himself as an in demand pianist in New York, joining the working bands of Donald Harrison, Ben Wolfe, Wycliffe Gordon, Rodney Green, Wayne Escoffery and Dominck Farinacci. He also works regularly for many of the worlds top jazz vocalists including Nnenna Freelon, Kevin Mahogony, Robin McKelle, Allan Harris, Gretchen Parlato and Marilyn Maye. He currently resides in Manhattan and is releasing his debut recording as a leader, "Familiar Places" this fall on Red Piano Records. 

The Julián and Friends composers showcase, created to celebrate and serve as a platform for young composer-instrumentalists, is in its fourth year at the Jazz Showcase. Each presentation seeks to expand the intergenerational conversation of jazz with experimental and forward thinking original programs. This presentation features the magnificent Cuban drummer Marcos Morales. JULIÁN PUJOLS QUALL Julián is a Dominican-American pianist and keyboardist, improviser, composer and educator from Chicago who has performed classical and jazz repertoire throughout the continental United States as well as in the Dominican Republic, Spain, Belgium, Puerto Rico and Mexico. A classically trained artist, Peabody Conservatory graduate, and DePaul University National Concerto Competition for Young Performers First Prize Winner, their work has found a home in jazz performance, improvisation and cross-cultural collaboration since developing experimental collaborative programs as a founding member of the Peabody Improvisers Collective. They are a curator for the Discoveries Hear & Be Heard series at Fulcrum Point New Music Project, and a 2025 National Association of Latino Arts and Culture Institute Fellow. Julián has been lead instructor for the Afro-Caribbean Jazz Combo at the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center After School Matters and is currently an accompanist at The Joffrey Ballet’s Grainger Academy. They are the host of “The Changes”, a trilingual interview show presenting local and international musicians on Lumpen Radio. Julián completed a 2024 Banff Center for the Arts Jazz and Sonic Arts composition/performance residency, released the single Rothko; Tlaloc and Totec with Carrier Records in 2023, and most recently had their compositions Chord Prelude and Moriviví premiere at the DiMenna Center for New and Classical Music during the 2024 Yarn/Wire Institute Festival in New York. Julián´s compositions are central to two projects they direct: Julián and Friends, a collaborative composition concert series running since 2022 at The Jazz Showcase, featuring guest artists such as Corey Wilkes, Lorin Benedict, Levi Lu, Brandon Woody, Kweku Sumbry, Lenard Simpson, Vincent Davis and Marques Carroll, and Mamey, a jazz project founded in 2023 centering on Dominico-Haitian music.  Mamey debuted in Belgium and has performed throughout Chicago including at the Old Town School of Folk Music, The Jazz Showcase, Fitzgerald´s, and Chicago Park District´s Night Out in The Parks series. The group completed a spring of 2024 South Arts Jazz Tour of the East Coast and a 2025 tour of the East Coast and the Caribbean and will release its debut album in early 2026 thanks to a Pathways to Jazz grant.  MARCOS MORALES A Cuban drummer, composer, producer, and graduate in Symphonic Percussion from the Professional School of Music in Matanzas, Cuba in 2014, Morales’s work combines performance, improvisation, and sonic exploration, grounded in Afro-Cuban rhythm and contemporary music practices.He has performed internationally in venues and festivals such as WOMAD Festival in Sydney, Queen Elizabeth Hall in London,Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles, and the Seoul Dechi Art Hall in South Korea, collaborating with artists including Daymé Arocena, Roberto Fonseca, Harold López-Nussa, Joe Lovano, Celeste White, and Orquesta Aragón, among others.Mercurio Sessions is the central artistic project of Marcos Morales, dedicated to spontaneous improvisation and collaborative sound exploration. Conceived as an open creative platform, the project brings together musicians in unique sessions where music emerges organically without stylistic limitations.Recent Mercurio Sessions recordings have featured collaborations with musicians such as Lorin Benedict, Logan Kane, Dion Kerr, Odalys Caro, Flora Flora, Zach Muth,Rasiel Aldama, Marc Decho, Jason Hayashi, among others. JUSTIN DILLARD Born and raised on the west side of Chicago and attending both Vandercook College of Music and The Velvet Lounge, his studies at both institutions gave him the honorable privilege to work with innovators locally and globally performing/recording with and/or receiving tutelage from the likes of: Branford Marsalis, Robert Irving III, Ornette Coleman, the late jazz master Von Freeman and Roscoe Mitchell to name a few. Howard Reich (Chicago Tribune arts critic) writes: “A new generation of jazz improvisers has emerged in Chicago in recent years, but few are more promising than organist/pianist Justin Dillard. Musically, Dillard tends to be all over the keyboard, drawing upon the examples of virtuosos such as Dr. Lonnie Smith, Eddie Harris and McCoy Tyner. But there’s something more to Dillard’s work as well; a quest for new ideas in music, in the manner of his AACM mentors.”  Justin has performed on national television (ABC) with his organ expose’ The DOT; and has played in various genres spanning Avant Garde with the late tenor master Fred Anderson to a Dave Matthews tribute band (Crash). He continues to transform his career by composing for and performing with his vast array of ensembles; all while accompanying great musicians all over the world.