Wynton Learson Marsalis is an American trumpeter, composer, and music instructor, who is currently the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has been active in promoting classical and jazz music, often to young audiences. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Awards, and his oratorio Blood on the Fields was the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Marsalis is the only musician to have won a Grammy Award in both jazz and classical categories in the same year.
David Nathaniel Baker Jr. was an American jazz composer, conductor, and musician from Indianapolis, as well as a professor of jazz studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Baker is best known as an educator and founder of the jazz studies program. From 1991 to 2012, he was conductor and musical and artistic director for the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. He has more than 65 recordings, 70 books, and 400 articles to his credit.
Ellis Louis Marsalis Jr. was an American jazz pianist and educator. Active since the late 1940s, Marsalis came to greater attention in the 1980s and 1990s as the patriarch of the musical Marsalis family, when sons Branford and Wynton became popular jazz musicians.
James A. Garfield High School is a public high school in the Seattle Public Schools district of Seattle, Washington. It is named after James A. Garfield, the 20th President of the United States. The school is located at 400 23rd Avenue between E. Alder and E. Jefferson Streets in the Central District section of Seattle.
Michael Zilber is a Canadian composer and musician. Zilber was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He moved to Boston, Massachusetts in his late teens and to New York City in his early twenties. He has performed and/or recorded with Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Dave Liebman, Miroslav Vitous, Bob Berg, Dave Douglas, Rachel Z, and Narada Michael Walden, among many others.
The Monterey Jazz Festival is an annual music festival that takes place in Monterey, California, United States. It debuted on October 3, 1958, championed by Dave Brubeck and co-founded by jazz and popular music critic Ralph J. Gleason and jazz disc jockey Jimmy Lyons.
Evan Christopher is an American jazz clarinetist and composer.
Roosevelt High School (RHS) is a public secondary school located in the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. Opened in 1922 to relieve overcrowding at Lincoln High School, it ranks as the second-largest high school in Seattle Public Schools. NPR described RHS as "an above-average school in a below-average school district" based on test scores in 2001.
Marcus Tsutakawa is the former Orchestra director at Garfield High School, where he taught from 1985 to 2016.
The Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival is an annual high school jazz festival and competition that takes place every May at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. The festival is aimed at encouraging young musicians to play music by Duke Ellington and other jazz musicians.
Phil Dwyer is a Canadian jazz saxophonist, pianist, composer, producer and educator. In 2017 he graduated from the University of New Brunswick (UNB) Faculty of Law in Fredericton, New Brunswick and was called to the bar of British Columbia in 2018. Dwyer is Member of the Order of Canada, having been invested in 2013 "For his contributions to jazz as a performer, composer and producer, and for increasing access to music education in his community." Dwyer has been nominated for Juno Awards six times and won Best Mainstream Jazz Album in 1994 with Dave Young for Fables and Dreams and Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year in 2012 for the recording Changing Seasons. Dwyer has also appeared on Juno Award winning recordings with Hugh Fraser (1988), Joe Sealy (1997), Natalie MacMaster (2000), Guido Basso (2004), Don Thompson (2006), Molly Johnson (2009), Terry Clarke (2010), and Diana Panton (2015). He is an alumnus and Honorary Fellow of The Royal Conservatory of Music.
Quartet San Francisco is a non-traditional and eclectic string quartet led by violinist Jeremy Cohen. The group played their first concert in 2001 and has recorded five albums. Playing a wide range of music genres including jazz, blues, tango, swing, funk, and pop, the group challenges the traditional classical music foundation of the string quartet.
Branford Marsalis is an American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. While primarily known for his work in jazz as the leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, he also performs frequently as a soloist with classical ensembles and has led the group Buckshot LeFonque. From 1992 to 1995 he led the Tonight Show Band.
Earshot Jazz is a regional jazz non-profit organization in Seattle, Washington. It brings jazz musicians and enthusiasts from the greater Seattle area and around the Pacific Northwest to create a jazz community that wants to keep the legacy of the deep rooted history of jazz. Efforts include festivals, education programs, publishing a magazine, and recognizing excpetional artists.
Anthony Branker is an American musician and educator of Caribbean descent.
Roxy Coss is a saxophonist, activist and composer based in New York. She is the winner of the ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award and has attracted attention from major music magazines and organizations.
Alex Dugdale is an American saxophonist and jazz performer.
Sidney Hauser is an American saxophonist with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra.
Floyd Standifer (1929–2007) was an American jazz musician who helped establish the jazz music scene in Seattle. He played tenor saxophone and trumpet, sang, and was bandleader of the Floyd Standifer Quartet. He was born in Wilmington, North Carolina on January 3, 1929. He died in Seattle, Washington, on January 22, 2007, at Virginia Mason Hospital. Standifer was 78 years of age at the time of his death. Born in 1929, Standifer moved to Oregon in 1936 with his parents. His father was an African Methodist Episcopal Zion preacher and his mother a schoolteacher. Standifer had four siblings and lived on a farm near Gresham, Oregon. He played the tuba in high school and taught himself to play saxophone and trumpet. In 1937, he played drums for a Works Progress Administration band in Portland.
Roger Donald Dickerson is a New Orleans pianist, composer, and educator.
