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Saxophonist, Flutist, and Educator Sharel Cassity is prominent on the New York and Chicago jazz scenes. Voted the 2023 "Rising Star Alto Saxophone" and having a cover feature in Downbeat Magazine, Sharel has appeared on the Today Show, Good Morning America, and The Colbert Show; she is in the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame and is a recipient of the ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award.    Sharel has worked with Multi-Grammy Award-winning artist Jennifer Hudson, Top 40 hit singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant, Aretha Franklin, Vanessa Williams, Trisha Yearwood, Ruben Blades, & DJ Logic, among others. An avid jazz artist,  Sharel has performed with NEA Jazz Masters Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Jimmy Heath, and Gary Bartz; she has also appeared as a featured soloist with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. As a bandleader, Sharel's five albums as a leader have received top-rated reviews in publications like the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, JazzTimes, Jazziz, American Indian News, & earned cover stories in Saxophone Journal and Downbeat Magazine. Cassity's collaborations have led her to co-lead recent releases by groups Altoizm, Precarious Towers, and her upcoming 2024 female collaboration, Alliance.    An advocate for Jazz Education, Cassity established the non-profit educational program "Jazz Up!" which brings jazz professionals to students in the suburbs who cannot go to hear live Jazz or play in combo settings. Cassity is a jazz professor in the Chicago area at DePaul University & Elgin Community College.    A skilled and versatile sideman, Sharel is a current Dizzy Gillespie Latin Experience and All-Star Big Band member. She has also performed frequently alongside renowned Grammy-winning artists Wynton Marsalis, Roy Hargrove, Nicholas Payton, Lewis Nash, Joe Chambers, Michael Dease, & Darcy James Argue. Sharel has toured 24 countries and performed at leading venues like the Newport Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, Chicago Jazz Festival, & the North Sea Jazz Festival. Additionally, Sharel was lead alto in the Diva Jazz Orchestra from 2007-2014 and performed in Wynton Marsalis' Broadway musical After Midnight.     Selected to attend The Juilliard School Jazz program under full scholarship for a Masters in Music and graduating in 2007, Sharel earned her BFA from The New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music in 2005. Sharel appears in publications "I Walked with Giants" by Jimmy Heath, "Three Generations Under the Lens" by Adrianna Mateo, and "Freedom of Expression: Interviews with Women in Jazz" by Chris Becker. Sharel is also an alumnus of the select student programs IAJE Sisters in Jazz, Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead, and the Ravinia Summer Residency.   Steeped in the classical tradition, Sharel placed third in the Disney International Piano Concerto Competition at ten and was offered a full scholarship to North Texas State University for classical saxophone at 18. She attended the University of Centeral Oklahoma in 1996 before moving to New York, where she was able to fully transition to Jazz. Born into a musical family, Sharel's father is a musician who played in New Orleans and was a professor and author of Music Therapy, and her aunt was a classical solo pianist with the Boston Pops and fullbright recipient.    Moving frequently throughout her childhood, Sharel lived with her mother, graduating high school in Yukon, Oklahoma. In 2000 she moved to New York City, relocated to Doha, Qatar, in 2015, and in 2017 settled in the Chicago area with her husband and son. Sharel is a proud Yamaha and Vandoren Performing Artist, exclusively playing Yamaha instruments and Vandoren equipment.

In August 1979, the ensemble was the opening band on the first night of the First Annual Chicago Jazz Festival. 46 years later, the CJO stands as not only the oldest professional big band in Chicago, but also the second oldest professional civic jazz orchestra in the United States (second only to the Columbus Jazz Orchestra).

Gabriel Wade - Trumpet Jared Schultz - Alto and Tenor Saxophone Isaiah Jones Jr. - Piano  Nat Lin - Bass Sid Smith IV - Drums Born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, Gabriel Wade is a trumpeter, pianist, and educator who has been surrounded by music all his life. He has had the opportunity to play with the Count Basie Orchestra, Cab Calloway Orchestra, Clif Wallace Big Band, Evon J. Sams Quintet/Sextet/Nonet, Reginald Lewis Quintet, and the Marlene Rosenberg Quartet. As a sideman, he has performed at notable venues and festivals such as Andy's Jazz Club, the Elmhurst Jazz Festival, the Chicago Jazz Festival, and the Jazz Showcase.  As a bandleader, he has performed at various locations in the central and southeastern Arkansas area, as well as in the northern Illinois area and at Fulton Street Collective and Angelo's Wine Bar in Chicago, Illinois. Recently, he qualified as a semifinalist in the Jazz Improvisation Division for the International Trumpet Guild's 2024 Ryan Anthony Memorial Trumpet Competition and earned first place in the 2024 Tom Williams Jazz Division of the National Trumpet Competition.

Born on Chicago’s west side, Dee Alexander is one of Chicago’s most gifted and respected female vocalist/songwriters. Her talents span every music genre, from Gospel to R&B, from Blues to Neo-Soul. Growing up in a household that was steeped in recordings of Dinah Washington, Ms. Alexander gravitated toward jazz from an early age. Other influences include Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and a little-known, much respected Chicago saxophonist, Light Henry Huff, with whom she worked in the late 80s. Huff encouraged her to take chances with making her own sounds, and the result is that her skills as an improviser are without boundary. A veteran on the Chicago scene since the 80s, Alexander’s associations with Chicago’s jazz elite include Ramsey Lewis, Orbert Davis’ Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, Chicago Jazz Orchestra, pianist Ken Chaney, Ernest Dawkins Chicago 12, Nicole M. Mitchell and Douglas Ewart’s Inventions. Her affiliation with the Association of the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) has also proved invaluable in her musical journey. Her 2007 Sirens of Song tribute to Nina Simone and Dinah Washington in Chicago’s Millennium Park introduced her to a larger audience and marked the beginning of world recognition for her artistry as well, touring extensively in France, Italy, Germany and Poland. She leads her own Dee Alexander Quartet, and the Evolution Ensemble whose music ranges from original compositions to renditions of James Brown and Jimi Hendrix. She has garnered accolades in African, Australian, European and North American press.