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MASON JAZZ FACULTY

Tribute to Sonny Rollins

Featuring special guest vocalist Dr. Darden Purcell, Director of Jazz Studies

Sunday, May 2, 2021 at 3 p.m.

Program will be announced from the stage.

OUR BAND

DR. DARDEN PURCELL (Voice) is an active featured soloist with symphony orchestras, big bands, and small ensembles, and a band leader and vocal instructor. She has shared the stage with top jazz artists such as Eric Alexander, Terell Stafford, Jim Pugh, Chip McNeill, Dana Hall, Alan Baylock, Glenn Wilson, Stockton Helbing, Byron Stripling, Bobby Floyd, Joel Spencer, Darmon Meader, Lisanne Lyons, Jim Carroll, Charlie Young, and Chris Vadala, and top groups such as the Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra, the U.S. Navy Commodores, the U.S. Naval Academy big band ensemble Next Wave, The U.S. Airmen of Note, the U.S. Army Blues, and the American Festival Pops Orchestra (Tony Maiello).

Darden has performed at concert halls and clubs nationally and internationally, including Blues Alley, Club Bonafide in New York City, Pops for Champagne, The Jazz Kitchen, The Blue Wisp, The Kitchen Cafe, The Bop Stop, JazzB in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Sandler Center (back-up vocals for Ben Folds), Meyerhoff Symphony Hall with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Wolf Trap National Park with the National Symphony Orchestra, and The Kennedy Center (back-up vocals for Mr. George Benson, Sara Bareilles, and Caroline Shaw). She is the Director of Jazz Studies, Jazz Voice Instructor, and Director of the Mason Jazz Vocal Ensemble at George Mason University.

She is a former Washington, D.C. Air Force Band vocalist with the groups High Flight and the Airmen of Note, performing nationally and internationally, including in Germany, Italy, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. She has performed back-up vocals for nationally renowned recording artists Chaka Khan, BeBe Winans, Bryan White, Lari White, Janie Frickie, Freda Payne, Sherrie Payne, Gloria Loring, Melba Moore, and Rita Coolidge, as well as for a televised performance behind Darlene Love on The Late Show with David Letterman.

In addition to her active performing schedule, Darden is a sought-after jazz vocal educator and clinician. Her groups have been invited to perform at the New York Voices Jazz Festival, Western Michigan’s Gold Company Jazz Vocal Invitational, the 2012 Jazz Education Network (JEN) conference, and the Kansas City Jazz Summit. She has served on the faculty of the W.O. Smith Music School camp in Nashville as well as Illinois Summer Youth Music, George Mason Summer Jazz Workshop, National Jazz Workshop, MAT Camp in Wyoming, and Augusta Heritage Center in West Virginia.

She has been a guest artist/clinician at Capital University, Illinois Wesleyan University, Texas Tech, Virginia Tech, Southern Nazarene University, Tiffin University, and Indiana State School Music Association. Her students have won “Outstanding Soloist” and “Outstanding Musicianship” awards at collegiate festivals as well as Downbeat Student Music Awards. In spring 2016, the Mason Jazz Vocal Ensemble was awarded “Outstanding Ensemble” at the Kansas City Jazz Summit, and in January 2018, the Mason Jazz Vocal Ensemble was a featured collegiate ensemble at the JEN conference in Dallas. In May 2018, Darden was honored to present at the Institute for Jazz Research “Jazz Voices” conference in Graz, Austria, and in March 2020, through a George Mason University Global Education grant, she performed at Projeto GURI and JazzB in Sao Paulo Brazil.

Darden received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Vocal Jazz Performance at Virginia Tech and a Master of Music and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Jazz Performance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her CDs, Easy Living and Where the Blue Begins, produced by Stockton Helbing with arrangements by Shawn Purcell, can be purchased at iTunes, Amazon, and at dardenpurcell.com.

PROFESSOR VICTOR PROVOST (Pan) Victor Provost’s performances transcend the expectations of instrument and genre. With appearances at major venues around the world, including Shanghai Concert Hall, Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater, the Umbria Jazz Festival, and the Kennedy Center, he has been meticulously solidifying his reputation as a master of the steel pan and crafting an improvisational voice and style to be reckoned with. Provost’s ability to extemporaneously weave through complex jazz harmony with accuracy and conviction, while being thoughtful and creative, often elicits the statement “I didn’t know a steel pan could do that.” He is one of a handful of pan players in the world who have incorporated the foundation of bebop into his playing, and arguably the only one who has expounded on that vocabulary with a modern sensibility and style. Born and raised on the island of St. John, Provost was first exposed to the steel pan at age 11 through Steel Unlimited II Youth Steel Orchestra, under the leadership of pan pioneer Rudy Wells. It was with this group of extraordinary young musicians that Provost first cut his teeth on the world stage, traveling throughout the U.S., France, Switzerland, Denmark, and Germany. The Orchestra eventually disbanded, but the experience planted the seed that prepared him to continue learning through several sessions with Wells and, in 2007, an intense year-long study with legendary Jazz Guru Charlie Banacos.

In 1998, Provost became the first steel pan soloist to be featured at the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy. The experience boosted both his confidence in the craft and his

musical concept. Since his move to the United States in 1999, Provost has recorded, toured, and performed with several award-winning groups, including the Grammy Award-winning Afro Bop Alliance, and renowned artists such as Paquito D’Rivera, Dave Samuels, Hugh Masakela, Nicolas Payton, Allison Hinds, Andy Narell, Terell Stafford, and Ron Blake, to name a few.

Along with a demanding performance schedule, Provost teaches private lessons, directs the George Mason University Steel Ensemble, and works with the Cultural Academy for Excellence (CAFÉ), one of the premier steel pan music education programs in the eastern U.S.

PROFESSOR XAVIER PEREZ (Tenor Saxophone) Originally from Miami, Florida, Xavier has performed in 13 countries and 48 states with a wide range of artists in the jazz and Latin music worlds. He was the only U.S. representative selected to perform in the final elimination round at an international saxophone competition, where he achieved Second Place out of hundreds of applicants from more than 20 countries.

Before relocating to the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, Xavier was a freelance performing and recording artist living in New York City for 11 years. During his tenure in New York, he became a regular sideman at such venues as The Blue Note, Smalls, 55 Bar, Fat Cat, Smoke, Birdland, and The Jazz Standard, among many others. He has performed as a touring member of Paquito D’Rivera and The United Nation Orchestra, Maynard Ferguson Big Bop Nouveau, Jon Faddis Jazz Orchestra of New York, and Ignacio Berroa Quartet, among others. He has shared concert, festival, and night club stages with (in addition to the above) James Moody, Diane Schurr, Brian Lynch, John Fedchock, Eric Harland, Michael Mossman, and more. He can be heard on recordings alongside Mark Turner, Antonio Sanchez, Edmar Castaneda, Maurice Brown, Jaleel Shaw, and Sam Barsh. In the D.C. area, he has performed with The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, the NSO Pops, and The Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra.

Xavier is currently assistant musical director and tenor saxophonist for the U.S. Army Blues, the premier jazz ensemble of the Army, performing ceremonies and concerts at the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and around the D.C. metro area.

PROFESSOR JIM CARROLL (Alto Saxophone) has a versatile background ranging from tours with Michael Jackson to Woody Herman and The Thundering Herd. He received both his undergraduate and graduate training from Indiana University under the tutelage of David Baker and Eugene Rousseau.

His travels have taken him to major venues in each of the fifty states, Europe, and the Far East and he has performed at the Aurex, Nice, Bern, Concord, Montreux, Kool, Monterey, Newport, North Sea, Perugia, and Pori jazz festivals. Active as an educator, he has taught at Butler University, Capital University, and the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshops.

Jim has authored several volumes through Hal Leonard’s Artists Transcriptions series, including a collaboration with jazz legend Sonny Rollins. His arrangement and performance of “The Ballgame” can be heard at the main entrance of Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. He was a charter member of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, in residence at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History, performing, recording, and touring with the group until 1999, when he became the Director of Jazz Studies at George Mason University. He has served as both Director of Instrumental Studies and Director of Operations for the School of Music and was the recipient of the prestigious “Teaching Excellence” award from George Mason University in 2018.

Carroll is the founder and artistic director of the Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra and the Jazz Connection. He is passionate about spreading the word of the power of the arts to bring people together, change lives, and do good in the world. He resides in Manassas, Virginia, with his wife Janette.

PROFESSOR AARON ECKERT (Trombone), originally from Belleville, Illinois, is a trombonist with the U.S. Army Blues, the premier jazz ensemble of the Army. He has performed with artists such as Jon Faddis, Jeff Hamilton, Chuck Israels, Conrad Herwig, and Scott Wendholt, among others. With the Army Blues, Aaron has performed across the capital region, including at the White House, the Capitol Building, and the Kennedy Center. In addition to the Blues, Aaron performs regularly in the D.C. area in a wide variety of musical settings.

Before moving to D.C., Eckert served as the Low Brass Instructor at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon. While in Oregon, he played regularly with the Mel Brown Big Band, the Hapa Hillbillies, the Chuck Israels Octet, and the Eastern Oregon Symphony, and was on the jazz faculty at the Eastern Illinois University Summer Music Camp.

Eckert completed his Master Degree with a Performer’s Certificate at the Eastman School of Music with degrees in Jazz and Contemporary Media Performance (trombone) and Performance and Literature (euphonium). While at Eastman, Eckert was awarded First Prize in the Rich Matteson Jazz Euphonium Competition and Second Prize (as a member of the Carillon Tuba Quartet) in the ensemble competition at the International Tuba Euphonium Conference. Also, he was selected as a finalist for the International Trombone Association J.J. Johnson Competition and placed Second in the Texas State Jazz Trombone Competition. He had the privilege of studying both trombone and euphonium with Mark Kellogg.

Eckert holds bachelor degrees in Music Education and Jazz Studies from Eastern Illinois University. During his undergraduate studies, he was recognized as the Outstanding Music Student of the Year from 2012 to 2014, the Outstanding Performer of the Year in 2013 and 2014, and was a finalist for student teacher of the year in 2014. During his five years at Eastern Illinois, he studied with Paul Johnston and Jemmie Robertson.

PROFESSOR GRAHAM BREEDLOVE (Trumpet) Jazz Times magazine writes, “Breedlove has chops...and is the leader of a tight, forceful band.” Allaboutjazz.com has called Breedlove, “A trumpet player with an exquisite tone and provocative harmonic ideas...Breedlove exhibits great control and cranks out some head-turning melodic ideas.” The International Trumpet Guild’s ITG Journal raves, “...one of the most exciting trumpet players on the planet!” Also active as a composer, his work has been featured on NBC’s Today show, Food Network’s Emeril Live, and ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and The Washington Post has called his playing “...terrific...with luminous, fine-grained autumnal harmonies....”

Since taking up the trumpet at age 12 in his hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana, Graham has performed on four continents in more than 20 countries with headliners representing more than 100 Grammy nominations. Among these are The Saturday Night Live Band, Ray Charles, Wynton Marsalis, Ramsey Lewis, Mariah Carey, and Doc Severinsen. As a leader, Breedlove is a Summit Records recording artist. When reviewing his debut CD Coming Home, released in 2001, amazon.com states, “This CD is like a bottomless glass of good wine.” The Graham Breedlove Quintet appears regularly at the Kennedy Center and was invited by the Obama administration to perform at the White House. Graham is listed in the book Trumpet Greats, which is “a biographical dictionary of famous trumpeters since the Baroque Era” by noted educator/author/trumpeter David Hickman. As a sideman, Breedlove has appeared on more than 200 recordings, including back-toback Grammy winners in 2004 and 2005.

Currently, Mr. Breedlove is a trumpet soloist with the U.S. Army Blues jazz ensemble, part of The United States Army Band, “Pershing's Own” in Washington, D.C., and he has appeared as a soloist, composer/arranger or lead player on seven CDs with the Army Blues. Graham also appears as musical director, soloist, and composer/arranger on Voodoo Boogaloo and Back to the Bayou, both critically acclaimed recordings by Swamp Romp, a Louisiana music group composed of members of the Army Blues. In an effort to promote jazz, he has presented clinics and masterclasses, and has appeared as a guest soloist at colleges and universities across the country. He has also served on the faculties of Towson University, Catholic University of America, and the National Jazz Workshop. He appears in the Hal Leonard Jazz Play Along Series, an educational book/CD series with over 150 volumes currently available in music stores around the world. During the 2008 holiday season, he volunteered to participate in a USO concert tour of Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan, performing for thousands of military men and women with country singers Mark Wills and Craig Morgan, comedian Louis CK, and model/TV personality Leann Tweeden. In 2011, he was honored by his undergraduate alma mater when he was inducted into the LSU Alumni Association Hall of Distinction as the 2011 Young Alumnus of the Year.

Mr. Breedlove holds a Bachelor of Music Degree from Louisiana State University and a Master of Music Degree and Performer’s Certificate from Indiana University, and has studied with world famous masters David Baker, Alvin Batiste, Byron Stripling, and Stephen Burns. He is an endorsing artist for Conn-Selmer Corporation and TrumCor

mutes and plays a vintage Bach trumpet and TrumCor’s hand crafted mutes exclusively. For more information please visit www.grahambreedlove.com.

PROFESSOR WADE BEACH (Piano) is widely respected for his harmonic sophistication and superb technique, which knows no stylistic limitations. He holds a Master Degree in Piano Performance from the University of Maryland. Beach entered the world of jazz as a protégé of Sir Roland Hanna and toured the globe many times over with the U.S. Air Force Band jazz ensemble, The Airmen of Note. Professor Beach has led the robust Jazz Chamber Program at Mason since its inception, and keeps up an active teaching and performing schedule, performing with groups around the D.C. area, including The Jazz Update Band.

PROFESSOR GLENN DEWEY (Bass) is one of the most versatile and in-demand performers and educators in America today. A native of Duluth, Minnesota, Mr. Dewey attended college pursuing a degree in Jazz Studies at the University of Minnesota in Duluth after graduating from Duluth Central high school. He then transferred to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, where he completed his Bachelor of Music Degree in Double Bass Performance, studying with Professor Michael Cameron and performing in the renowned big-band of Professor John Garvey.

After receiving his B.M., he was offered a position as Professor of Bass at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. While on the faculty at this prestigious institution, Dewey returned to school to complete a Master of Music in Performance Degree at Northwestern University, under the tutelage of internationally recognized soloist and pedagogue Jeffrey Bradetich.

In 1994, Glenn won a position with “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Band in Washington, D.C., and simultaneously obtained a position at George Mason University, where he is currently in his 27th year as Professor of Bass. His career as a performer has included performances in 49 of our 50 states as well as Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. He has done eight national concert tours and was a featured soloist in a seven-week, 11-state Northeastern concert tour with the Marine Band.

Dewey has performed virtually every style of music with artists such as Toby Keith, Marty Stuart, Arturo Sandoval, Steve Allen, Michael Feinstein, Stevie Wonder, Sir Paul McCartney, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Denyce Graves, and Joshua Bell, to name a few. He has performed under the baton of Osmo Vanska, Leonard Slatkin, Gustavo Dudamel, and John Williams, and was recently part of an Emmy Award-winning, three-part series on PBS television, “The All-Star Band - Masterpieces for Symphonic Band” under the direction of Gerard Schwartz. He can also be heard on the Summit Records recording Love Songs with Trombonist Harry Watters, on the Grammy-nominated album by Julie Keim, Only Yesterday, and on recordings with “The President’s Own” since 1994.

Professor Dewey is committed to influencing music’s future stars. He is an active member of the artistic staff for the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestra and is a frequent clinician and adjudicator at high schools and colleges in the D.C. area and

around the country. He resides in Bristow, Virginia, with his wife Lori. They have three talented, funny, and successful adult children – Andrew, Miles, and Corinne – his granddaughter Jaina, a fur baby golden lab named Brandi, and a new addition to the family – a golden retriever named Sadie.

HELLO FROM JIM CARROLL, FOUNDER, MASON JAZZ

Dear Friends,

I believe it is more important than ever that we learn as much as possible about America’s great contribution to the arts: JAZZ. Jazz is America’s diary and a blueprint for our future, and has been designated as a “rare and valuable national treasure” by Congress in House Resolution 57. As an educator, I feel a strong sense of purpose to pass on to my students their rightful cultural inheritance. Its value is beyond priceless. As a human being, I feel a deep, deep sense of gratitude to those who came before and sacrificed so much so that we may have such a rich and abundant heritage.

Excerpt from friend Wynton Marsalis, The Road Ahead:

“Jazz People come from all walks of life. The music is easily played in every environment from the subway to the park to a corner dive [and to our own Center for the Arts!]. It comes from salt of the earth people who created it to be down home and hospitable, humble and rough and tumble. Jazz Music was built in the cacophonous turbulence of 1890’s New Orleans with the hardy constitution to lift us beyond troubled times. It is filled with a transformative positivity, if only because of the thought that a whole band could play all night without music, and each member could improvise new melodies on the harmonies of songs while organizing themselves as they made it up together.

If you consider the opposition to what they were playing at the time (it was called the devil’s music, nonsense, ignorant, racket … and treated to all levels of racial insult from the sophomoric to the sophisticated), these musicians must have possessed an irrepressible spirit that inspired them and still inhabits this music, and can lift us as we grapple with our everyday struggles.”

With Sonny Rollins:

While building the Jazz Program at Mason, I had the great honor of collaborating with Mr. Rollins on a project for publisher Hal Leonard, “The Sonny Rollins Collection.” It involved notating Mr. Rollins’s improvisations from several of his newer releases plus a tape he sent to me including additional choruses. It was a great honor and fortuitous for Mason Jazz. We had many phone conversations about the book, which inevitably led to long talks about everything under the sun. Mostly Sonny wanted to talk about saxophones and mouthpieces. I asked, “Mr. Rollins, haven’t you found a mouthpiece by now?” His reply: “I’m still searching, baby.”

For me that sums it all up. “Searching!” Aren’t we all? Along with David Baker, Jamey Aebersold, and Wynton Marsalis, Mr. Rollins helped form the guiding principles which formed Mason Jazz.

THANK YOU, Sonny, for your beautiful spirit, your guidance, your love, your strength, your wisdom, your humor, and especially your music, which we receive in our innermost souls.

“I try to follow the golden rule, which is do unto others as you would have them do unto you, which, by the way, is in every religion and every discipline that we know of….”

– Sonny Rollins

~Jim Carroll, 2021

DR. DARDEN PURCELL (Voice) is an active featured soloist with symphony orchestras, big bands, and small ensembles, and a band leader and vocal instructor. She has shared the stage with top jazz artists such as Eric Alexander, Terell Stafford, Jim Pugh, Chip McNeill, Dana Hall, Alan Baylock, Glenn Wilson, Stockton Helbing, Byron Stripling, Bobby Floyd, Joel Spencer, Darmon Meader, Lisanne Lyons, Jim Carroll, Charlie Young, and Chris Vadala, and top groups such as the Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra, the U.S. Navy Commodores, the U.S. Naval Academy big band ensemble Next Wave, The U.S. Airmen of Note, the U.S. Army Blues, and the American Festival Pops Orchestra (Tony Maiello).