The Studio Jazz Ensemble (the UW Big Band-Marc Seales, director) and Modern Band (Cuong Vu, director) present a shared program of repertory selections, original music, and inspired arrangements. The Studio Jazz Ensemble pays tribute to Roy Cummings, the late, former longtime director of the Studio Jazz Ensemble, in a set dedicated to his memory.
Modern Band
Cuong Vu, director
Much to Give - Cole McKittrick
Manteca Groove - BLUEs.WEAVE
Tomorrow Is Yesterday - Coen Rios
Could Be Stranger - Natalie Song
Jai Kobi Kaleo'okalani, guitar; Cole McKittrick, guitar; Tobias Miller, drums; Coen Rios, tenor sax; Rory Somers, trumpet; Natalie Song, piano; Riley Tobin, bass
Studio Jazz Ensemble
Marc Seales, director
Hip Hop - Bob Mintzer
The Heart of the Matter - Bob Mintzer
Morning Dance - Jay Beckenstein, arr. John Higgins
Love Walked In - George and Ira Gershwin arr. Kim Richmond
Cottontail - Duke Ellington arr. Alan Blaylock
Bow Down to Washington - arr. Roy Cummings
Trombones: Alex Weber (lead), Jamison Schmidt, Josiah Bizure, Mark Henry
Trumpets: Benjamin von Jess (lead), Aidan Brannon, Colin Eneberg, Jameson Gibbs, Timmy Brock
Saxophones: Kevin Em (lead), Danian Raymundo, Ashton Garcia, Joey Kyne, Wesley Loechelt, Parker Duncan
Rhythm: Elise Soper, Jaden Zika, Teddy Seligman
Some Studio Jazz Ensemble Alumni
Brad Allison, Thomas Marriott, Mike Van Bebber, Dave Marriott, Jr., Scott Brown, Mark Taylor, Travis Ranney, Andrew Glynn, Michael Glynn, Steve Korn, Marc Seales
Colleagues
Michael Brockman, Marc Seales
Tribute to Roy Cummings
Cummings’ career at UW began in 1970 when he became a trumpet instructor after earning music and music education degrees at UW, and continued with his longtime leadership of the Studio Jazz Ensemble. He continued to teach at the School until his untimely death in January 2000, when he suffered a heart attack in the Music Building on his way to teach a class. Cummings was a passionate spokesperson for the importance of music and humanities education, and his opinions on the matter remain relevant today.
“Jazz education in the state of Washington is in pretty good shape,” he said in a 1985 interview in the Olympiannewspaper, “but it as well as all music education and humanities curricula are falling on hard times. Humanities education funding is playing second fiddle to the sciences. We can’t all be scientists. We need the human expression and humanities to relax. Music is a big part of that.” The performing arts, he said, are as necessary to the well-being of humankind as a balanced diet, and humanities education should be funded as well as sciences, physics, and nuclear sciences.
“These guys are nuclear, too,” he said in reference to the student musicians of the Studio Jazz Ensemble. “There’s some real explosions with these guys.”
Sidebar: Roy M. Cummings Endowed Scholarship Supports Rising Stars in Jazz
Support from the Roy M. Cummings Endowed Scholarship has enabled promising young jazz musicians to focus on their music studies while taking advantage of performance opportunities both at school and out in the clubs and coffeehouses that play host to the city’s most forward-thinking, musically adept, and creative young musicians.
“I see the scholarship as having afforded the recipients more time to focus on music while rewarding them for their hard work,” says Jazz Studies Chair Cuong Vu. “This kind of support is essential for us to not only keep sustaining these talented and driven young people, but also attracting more to the UW School of Music.” Gifts to the Roy M. Cummings Endowed Scholarship Fund helps the School of Music attract top students to the program and provides financial assistance to undergraduates studying jazz at UW.
To make a gift, or for more information, please call 206.685.6997, or make a gift online here.
Biographies
Cuong Vu is widely recognized by jazz critics as a leader of a generation of innovative musicians. A truly unique musical voice, Cuong has lent his trumpet playing to a wide range of artists such as Pat Metheny, Laurie Anderson, and David Bowie.
As a youngster, Cuong's intense dedication and love for music led him to a full scholarship at the New England Conservatory of Music where he received his Bachelor of Music in Jazz studies with a distinction in performance. Transitioning from his studies in Boston, he moved to New York in 1994 and began his career actively leading various groups while touring extensively throughout the world. As a leader, Cuong has released eight recordings, each making critics’ lists of the 10 best recordings of their respective years and has received rave reviews from notable publications such as the New York Times, The New Yorker, Harper’s, the Guardian, BBC Music Magazine, JazzTimes and Downbeat. Each record displays how he has carved out a distinctive sonic territory as a trumpet player, blurring all stylistic borders while developing his own compositional aesthetic and sound world.
Awards and honors that Cuong has garnered include grants from the Royalty Research Foundation, the Donald E. Petersen Professorship, ArtistTrust, 4Culture, CityArts and the Colbert Award for Excellence. Cuong is currently associate professor and chair of Jazz Studies at the University of Washington and was awarded the University of Washington's prestigious Distinguished Teacher Award in his third year on faculty. In 2002 and 2006, Cuong was a recipient of the Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album as a member of the Pat Metheny Group. He’s been recognized as one of the top 50 Jazz Artists in an article called “The New Masters” from the British magazine, “Classic CD” and in 2006 was named the Best International Jazz Artist by the Italian Jazz Critics’ Society. Amazon listed Vu’s “Come Play With Me” on their “The 100 Greatest Jazz Albums of All Time.”
A noted pianist, composer and leading figure in the Northwest jazz scene, Marc Seales has shared stages with many of the great players of the last two decades. He has played with nearly every visiting jazz celebrity from Joe Henderson and Art Pepper to Benny Carter, Mark Murphy, and Bobby Hutcherson. With the late Don Lanphere he performed in such places as London, England; Kobe, Japan; The Hague in the Netherlands; and the North Sea Jazz Festival.
The musicians he admires most are Herbie Hancock, Charlie Parker, John Lewis, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Wynton Kelly, though he is quick to acknowledge that he owes the basically be-bop/post be-bop sound of his playing to his mentors, Don Lanphere and Floyd Standifer.
Critics have praised Seales variously for his "meaty piano solos," and "blues inflected, Hancock-inspired modernism." Winner of numerous Earshot awards (Instrumentalist of the Year in 1999 and Acoustic Jazz Group in 2000 and 2001; Jazz Hall of Fame, 2009), Seales is today promoting jazz awareness and molding young talents as a Professor of Music at the University of Washington, where he is a professor in the Jazz Studies Program. He teaches an array of courses, including History of Jazz, Jazz Piano, and Beginning and Advanced Improvisation, as well as leading various workshops and ensembles.