Schools

Tosa East Bands Benefit to Feature Jazz Trombone Virtuoso Wycliffe Gordon

Six-time Grammy-winner will join top college jazz band and East High's Jazz I Ensemble.


Six-time winner of the Jazz Journalists Association Trombonist of the Year Award Wycliffe Gordon will be the guest artist with the Northern Illinois (NIU) Jazz Ensemble at the 12th Annual Great Night of Jazz concert at the Dale K. Hidde Theater at at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Born in Waynesboro, GA, in 1967, Gordon discovered the trombone at the age of 12 when his older brother began to play in junior high school. He has since performed with the Wynton Marsalis Septet, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Billy Taylor, Dizzy Gillespie, Tommy Flanagan, Shirley Horn and many other jazz greats.

Gordon is currently a faculty member of the Jazz Arts Program at the Manhattan School of Music. He received the ASCAP Foundation Vanguard Award for his innovative musical activity as a composer, instrumentalist, performer and educator.

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His commissioned works include, “I Saw the Light,” a tribute to Muhammad Ali; “Apollo: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,” commissioned on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Apollo Theater; and a new score for the 1925 classic silent film, “Body and Soul.” Gordon travels throughout the world presenting clinics, master classes and workshops.

The NIU Jazz Ensemble, referred to as “my band” by Dizzie Gillespie and named by Duke Ellington as “one of the top collegiate bands in the nation,” continues to gain critical acclaim for the talents of director Ronald Carter and the NIU School of Music.

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NIU has become nationally known for its outstanding jazz studies program. Graduates from NIU list as top musicians not only in the Chicago-area music scene, but also all over the country.

Guest artists who have appeared with the band include Louis Bellson, Clark Terry, Wynton Marsalis and many others. U.S. News and World Report has rated the Jazz Studies Program at NIU among the top 10 graduate jazz programs in the country the past six years.

Opening the concert will be the Tosa East Jazz Ensemble I. The Tosa East bands and jazz ensembles perform under the direction of Rob Engl and Jennifer Pfeffer.

All seats for the concert are reserved. Tickets for the benefit concert at the Dale K. Hidde Theater on the East High School campus, 7500 Milwaukee Ave., are $15 on the main floor and $10 for balcony seating. Students and senior citizens may purchase tickets for $8.

Tickets will be available at the door. This concert is a benefit for the Wauwatosa East High School Bands.


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