Juilliard Jazz announces new faculty appointments for the 2007-08 academic year
Saxophonist Ron Blake, pianist George Colligan, bassist David Grossman, trumpeter Eddie Henderson and guitarist Rodney Jones join the Juilliard Jazz faculty
Juilliard Jazz announces several new faculty appointments for the 2007-08 academic year. Saxophonist Ron Blake, pianist George Colligan, bassist David Grossman, trumpeter Eddie Henderson, and guitarist Rodney Jones join the Juilliard Jazz faculty this fall.
Saxophonist Ron Blake, a native of the Virgin Islands, was only eight when he began studying the guitar, and at the age of te
n, started playing the saxophone. He graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan before moving to the Chicago area and attending Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in the 1980s. In 1990, he moved to Florida to teach at the University of South Florida. In 1992, he moved to New York City, where he spent five years as trumpeter in Roy Hargrove’s quintet, and seven years playing flugelhorn in Art Farmer’s group. By the early 2000s, he was leading his own quartet, which included pianist Shedrick Mitchell, bassist Reuben Rogers, and drummer Greg Hutchinson. Mr. Blake’s first album as a leader, Up Front & Personal, was released on the Tahmun label in 2000. His new release on Mack Avenue, Shayari, is scheduled for an early 2008 release and features Mr. Blake in trio settings in collaboration with pianist/producer Michael Cain and special guests Regina Carter, Jack DeJohnette, Gilmar Gomes, and Christian McBride. He has performed at major jazz festivals and clubs internationally and has shared the stage with such jazz greats as Stanley Turrentine, Bobby Hutcherson, Roy Haynes, and Ray Brown. He has made over 40 jazz recordings with his contemporaries, as well as legendary artists Benny Golson, Jimmy Smith, Dianne Reeves, Shirley Horn, Abbey Lincoln, Betty Carter, Arthur Taylor, and Art Farmer. 
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Pianist George Colligan is an award-winning composer (Chamber Music America, Doris Duke Foundation grant recipient) and player (winner, Jazzconnect.com Jazz Competition). He has toured, recorded, and/or performed as a sideman with Cassandra Wilson, Buster Williams, Don Byron, Benny Golson, Eddie Henderson, Nicholas Payton, Sheila Jordan, Christian McBride, Carl Allen, Mingus Big Band, among others. His latest CD on the Ultimatum label is entitled Blood Pressure.
Bassist David J. Grossman enjoys a varied career as a jazz and classical musician, as represented by his two concurrent classical and jazz debut recordings entitled The Bass of Both Worlds. In the realm of jazz, Mr. Grossman was a member of the Marcus Roberts Trio whose 19
96 Columbia recording Time & Circumstance was listed in the "best top ten jazz CDs of the year" in both Time magazine and The New York Times. Mr. Grossman also has performed with other notables such as Wynton Marsalis, Lew Tabackin, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Richard Stoltzman and recorded with David Morgan and Loston Harris. As a classical bassist, he joined the New York Philharmonic as its youngest member upon graduating from The Juilliard School in May 2000. An active chamber musician, Mr. Grossman performs in both the New York Philharmonic's 92nd Street Y and Merkin Hall chamber music series and has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Most recently, he was a featured artist in the 2007 Portland (Maine) Chamber Music Festival as well as the Mount Desert Festival. Mr. Grossman is on the double bass faculty at the Manhattan School of Music. Also a composer, he wrote Mood Swings, a piece for trombone and double bass, for New York Philharmonic Principal Trombone Joseph Alessi; and composed Fantasy on “Shall We Gather at the River?” for New York Philharmonic English Horn Thomas Stacy's recording, Plaintive Melody. Two earlier compositions, Swing Quartet and String Quintet No. 1, were written for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Bringing together both his classical and jazz interests, Mr. Grossman performed in an impromptu jazz ensemble during a week of joint concerts with the New York Philharmonic and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, culminating in a Live From Lincoln Center telecast and radio broadcast.
Jazz trumpeter Eddie Henderson had his first informal lesson at age 9 with Louis Armstrong. As a teenager, he attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and performed with the San Francisco Conservatory Symphony Orchestra, but trained to be a doctor and then chose music. Mr. Henderson was strongly influenced by Miles Davis. He has worked with John Handy, Tyrone Washington, and Joe Henderson, in addition to his own group. Mr. Henderson played with the Herbie Hancock Sextet (1970-1973). After the Hancock group disbanded, he went on to work with Art Blakey and Mike Nock, recorded with Charles Earland, and in the 1970s, led a rock-oriented group. In the 1990s, he toured with Billy Harper, while also working as a psychiatrist.
Hailed by guitar master George Benson as, “a legend among musicians,” Rodney Jones continues to push the boundaries of modern jazz guitar playing while at the same time working with many of the Pop legends (Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Indigo Girls, Robert Palmer, Phil Collins, The Indigo Girls, Destiny’s Child), R&B (Chaka Kahn,Lauren Hill, De La Soul, Maceo Parker, James Brown, Brandy, Queen Latifah), blues legends (Ruth Brown, Carla Thomas, Albert Collins), and jazz artists (Dizzy Gillespie, Arthur Blythe, Donald Harrison, Hank Jones, Milt Jackson, Joe Henderson, Quincy Jones, Roy Eldridge, The Manhattan Transfer, George Wein, Bill Cosby, Jimmy Smith, Jane Monheit, Charles Brown, Hamiett Bluiett, Donald Harrison) of our time. Mr. Jones studied at The City College of New York with piano master and founder of the Modern Jazz Quartet, John Lewis. He is a dedicated educator now: in addition to teaching at Juilliard, he just completed his 20th year on the faculty of Manhattan School of Music. He has also taught at The New School, Mannes College of Music, Queens College, CCNY, Jazzmobile as well as clinics and master classes at many colleges including The Berklee College of Music, Eastman School of Music and SUNY Oswego.
About Juilliard Jazz
The 2007-08 season marks the seventh anniversary of Juilliard Jazz, the newest program of performance education inaugurated by Juilliard which itself is entering its second century of performing arts education. The Juilliard Jazz curriculum is tailored to meet the practical performance needs of its young artists. In addition to a busy schedule of appearances at clubs and local venues, the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra and its myriad ensembles tour nationally and internationally throughout the calendar year. Touring may be the quality that sets Juilliard Jazz apart from its counterparts elsewhere in Juilliard and from every other jazz education program in the U. S. Since its first season, Juilliard Jazz has toured, and now-annual tours to a range of destinations, such Costa Rica and Japan, St. Louis, Missouri and Aitken, South Carolina, are part of an exposure to a professional life in music that is integral to Juilliard Jazz’s performance education. They have traveled to Qatar, serving as ambassadors of America’s homegrown ‘classical’ sound and every other year a small ensemble returns to New Orleans for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Other young artists travel with Juilliard Jazz faculty and teach along side their mentors in residencies this season in Spain and Utah. Since Juilliard’s founding in 1905, its faculty has been acknowledged as one of the most professionally diverse and accomplished of any arts institution. The remarkable Juilliard Jazz faculty continues that tradition.
While the Juilliard Jazz curriculum stresses performance in the orchestra and small ensembles, serious class work is required in jazz history, jazz improvisation, jazz composition and arranging, Juilliard Jazz Orchestra, small jazz ensemble, piano skills, and elements of music. All are carefully interrelated to performance needs and practical application. Most students also will work on ear training, piano skills, and literature and materials of music.
While long-known for the remarkable roster of classical musicians who studied there, Juilliard's noted alumni also include numerous musicians who cross all styles of jazz, including: the late Sir Roland Hanna, vocalist Freddy Cole, trumpeter Miles Davis, pianist Andy LaVerne, flutist Hubert Laws, percussionist Tito Puente, singer Nina Simone, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, and bassist Christian McBride. Mr. McBride is one of three outstanding guest artists who will work with the Juilliard jazz musicians this season and perform with them (on Monday, October 1 at 8 PM), along with Paquito D’Rivera (Wednesday, October 17 at 8 PM), and Maria Schneider (Monday, February 4 at 8 PM).
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