Jazz Is Now!

As an educational affiliate of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Jazz is NOW! shares similar programming goals with JLC, including Jazz Is for Everyone! classes and educational workshops, in addition to the orchestra. In March 2003, Jeremy Walker formed an Artistic Advisory Board that includes jazz masters Wynton Marsalis of JLC, Victor Goines from Julliard, and Ted Nash from the Jazz Composers Collective; Goines and Nash have been members of JLC as well. In addition to the orchestra, the JIN organization includes the Jazz Is NOW! Composers' Ensembles, ranging from trio to sextet. Formed to explore a particular sound or idea as well as bring the JIN music to smaller venues, these ensembles are specific projects with varying personnel. Past ensembles have included a piano-less quartet with alto, tenor, bass and drums, and a traditional quartet with saxophone and rhythm section.

Jazz Is NOW! Orchestra

The nine-piece Jazz is NOW! Orchestra, the brainchild of founder and Artistic Director Jeremy Walker, swings with the spirit of the historic territory bands of the 1930s and the creative intensity of the groups of Charles Mingus. Already recognized for their free and energetic sound, JIN is winning new fans of big bands. Todd Reynolds, renowned violinist with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project and former concertmaster of Marcus Roberts' Gershwin Orchestra, called his guest performance this January with Jazz is NOW! as "one of the best nights of music in [my] life." Recently the band was named recipient of a 2005 Jerome Foundation Centennial Grant for the commissioning of new works.

The JIN personnel include a Who's Who among Twin Cities' jazz artists, each with a solid reputation in his own right: Anthony Cox (bass), Peter Schimke (piano), Kevin Washington (drums), Kelly Rossum (trumpet), Matt Darling (trombone), Scott Fultz (tenor saxophone), Chris Thomson (tenor and soprano saxophones, Music Director), and Jeremy Walker (alto saxophone, Artistic Director).

Anthony Cox has an international reputation as a versatile and creative bassist, equally at home in straight-ahead acoustic settings and avant garde electronic experiments. Rooted in the Midwest, Cox spent professionally formative years in New York and on the international touring circuit, playing and/or recording with Elvin Jones, James Newton, David Murray, Henry Threadgill, Arthure Blythe, Jon Faddis, Sam Rivers, Dewey Redman, Joe Lovano, John Scofield, and Geri Allan, among many others. In addition to private instruction, Cox has taught at MusicTech and Anoka-Ramsey Community College as well as a long list of local, national, and international residencies, public school projects, and workshops. His skills as a composer can be heard on his recordings, such as Dark Metals with Billy Higgins and Dewey Redman. These days, with local and regional bands, including the Grismore Scea Group, he plays with "a deep, burnished quality, and...adapts to the varied compositional demands with suppleness and conviction" (Artists Direct).

Peter Schimke is one of the busiest keyboard talents in the Twin Cities today, appearing frequently at the Artists Quarter, Dakota, and just about anywhere else that requires first class comping and soloing on piano or Fender Rhodes. Notes Don Berryman (Jazz Police), "When he is comping behind a soloist, he is engaged in a subtle dialogue, listening and responding with harmonies and rhythms that sometimes represent a suggestion or even a challenge to the soloist." And when he takes off in a leading role, Schimke blazes new trails and challenges others to keep up. In addition to JIN and his own ensembles, Schimke is a member of the edgy quartet, How Birds Work.

Kevin Washington is a native of Detroit and son of saxophonist Donald and flautist Faye Washington. A musical prodigy, he started playing at jazz festivals at age 5, and moved to the Twin Cities with his family at age 13. As a jazz student at the New School for Social Research in New York, he also taught rhythm section fundamentals at the Harlem School of the Arts. Washington, not yet thirty, has performed with Roscoe Mitchell, Antonio Hart, Chico Freeman, James Carter, Marcus Belgrave, David Murray Big Band, Fred Ho, Craig Taborn, and James Newton, among others. Home in Minneapolis, he mans the trapset with such artists as Doug Little, Alicia Wiley, Bruce Henry, Anthony Cox, and Moveable Feast, and has been an instructor with the Twin Cities Jazz Workshop.

Kelly Rossum studied classical trumpet at the University of North Texas, and now teaches through the MacPhail Center for Music. Living in Minneapolis since 1996, Rossum performs both jazz and classical music, having worked with the Lyra Consort as well as with a wide range of local jazz artists. His second recording, Renovation, was nominated for four Minnesota Music Awards; was included in the top 20 local albums for 2004 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune; and was one of City Pages' top 10 local albums of the year.

Matt Darling is as eclectic as they come—playing trombone with the on-the-edge, Latin-tinged ensemble, Tambuca, a group of live musicians playing in tandem with DJs spinning turntables, as well as Yawo, an acclaimed ensemble of musicians dedicated to African music, and the blues bands, Big Bang and the Titanics. He's also a member of Kelly Rossum's Exit 50 band, dedicated to original music.

Scott Fultz is perhaps best known in the Twin Cities as the "F" of the FKG trio with drummer Dave King and bassist Adam Linz, a band formed ten years ago "over common interest in 20th century composition, delta blues and disdain for neo-traditionalist jazz." Fultz has also performed with a wide range of artists, including Bill Carrothers, Anthony Cox, Bruce Henry, Hale Smith, Steve Barta, The Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, and The Cedar Avenue Big Band. He's released a recording of original music titled Junket.

Chris Thomson leads Anamika and plays tenor and soprano sax regularly with the Kelly Rossum Quintet, Paul Renz Quartet, and other ensembles. He taught at the MacPhail Center of Music, is a former band director at Rosemount High School, and has been involved in the Minnesota Institute for Talented Youth, teaching improvisation.

Jeremy Walker, founder and Artistic Director of Jazz Is Now!, is a young saxophonist/entrepreneur with a deep commitment to educating the public, and especially the younger generation, about jazz. His short-lived gem Brilliant Corners was a no smoke/no alcohol establishment, in part designed to attract the under-21 crowd, including nearby Music Tech students. Walker's professional career has included work with some of the areas best musicians, including Chris Bates, Thom West, Michael O'Brien, Laura Caviani, JT Bates, Jeff Bailey, Jay Epstein and Ginger Commadore.  He has led his own groups for over ten years, performing at the Dakota, Café Luxx, Clown Lounge, and at the Twin Cities Hot Summer Jazz Festival. Walker also finds time to teach jazz improvisation and saxophone as adjunct faculty at Bethel University. He notes that the culmination of his professional career has come with the formation of Jazz is NOW!, which has given him the chance to play with Wynton Marsalis, Matt Wilson and his quartet, Anthony Cox, Ted Nash, Todd Reynolds, and many of the region's best musicians.

Jazz Is Now! Future Gigs

The Bryant-Lake Bowl performance this week will provide a preview of original pieces to be staged later this spring when JIN holds its official grand opening concert series with national guest artists from the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. The March 15^th world premiere at the Illusion Theater will feature Wessell "Warmdaddy" Anderson, the talented alto saxist and long-standing member of the JLC Orchestra and Wynton Marsalis Quintet. Joining Anderson will be local trumpet whizkid Greg Paulus, a St. Paul native and current student at the Manhattan School of Music. Later this spring, JIN will feature tenor saxman Ted Nash at the Dakota (April 28), and Nash with the Zenon Dance Company at the Illusion Theater (April 29 - 30).

On February 26, also at Bryant-Lake Bowl, the Jazz is NOW! Composer's Ensemble will play its first public performance, featuring a small rotating cast of musicians from both the Orchestra and the local jazz community. Guests will likely include David Milne on tenor saxophone and flute, John Raymond and Omar Abdul-Karim on trumpet, Clay Moore on guitar, and Jeffrey Bailey and Michael O'Brien on bass.

Of the fate of Brilliant Corners, Jeremy Walker told Chris Riemenschneider (Star Tribune), "I do think the experiment was successful, especially in attracting college kids and other students to jazz. . . . Hopefully, we can continue do that somewhere else." "Somewhere else" is (among other projects) the music of the Jazz Is NOW! Orchestra and Composers' Ensemble. Join the excitement and catch these innovative artists as they embark on a hopefully long-lived journey through modern jazz.

The Bryant-Lake Bowl is located in south Minneapolis at 810 W. Lake Street; show on February 10 (Jazz Is NOW! Orchestra) at 10 pm; on February 26 (Composers' Ensemble) at 10 pm; www.bryantlakebowl.com. March 15 (7:30 pm) and April 29-30 performances of the JIN Orchestra will be at the Illusion Theater, 528 Hennepin Avenue on the 8th floor of the Hennepin Center for the Arts in downtown Minneapolis; www.illusiontheater.org. April 28, catch the Orchestra at the Dakota Jazz Club and Restaurant in downtown Minneapolis, 1010 Nicollet Mall, www.dakotacooks.com. For updates on Jazz Is NOW!, visit their website at www.jazzisnow.org

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