Carnegie Hall

Currently Associate Professor of Jazz Drum Set at the University of North Texas, Quincy Davis was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and comes from a musical family. After graduating from Interlochen Arts Academy in 1995, he began studying at Western Michigan University with drum legend Billy Hart. In summer 2000, he moved to New York City, where he quickly became one of the highly sought after “young cats” on the New York jazz scene. In New York, he frequently played at all the famous jazz venues including the Village Vanguard, the Blue Note, Smalls, Jazz Standard, Birdland, the Iridium, Dizzy’s Coca-Cola Club, and Smoke.

During his time in New York City, Mr. Davis performed and toured with world-renowned musicians such as Frank Wess, Ernestine Anderson, Cecil McLorin-Salvant, Russell Malone, Eric Reed, Paquito D'Rivera, Kurt Elling, Christian McBride, Buster Williams, Eric Alexander, Leslie Odom Jr., Aaron Parks, Seamus Blake, Vanessa Rubin, Aaron Goldberg, Jon Faddis, Jimmy Heath, Gerald Clayton, The Clayton Brothers, Harold Mabern, Aaron Parks, Peter Bernstein, Regina Carter, Jimmy Heath, David Hazeltine, Roy Hargrove, Randy Johnston, Bob Sheppard, Paula West, Houston Person, Curtis Fuller, New York Voices, The Mingus Orchestra, Ryan Kisor, and Wessell Anderson. He still performs with many of these artists.

In 2013, Mr. Davis released his debut recording as a leader Songs in the Key of Q, which rose to number one on Jazz Week’s radio jazz chart. His sophomore release, Q Vision, was ranked third for five weeks. Both albums feature all original music written by Mr. Davis.

Mr. Davis can be heard on more than 50 albums playing with many notable jazz artists including Tom Harrell, Gretchen Parlato, Benny Golson, Steve Nelson, Ted Rosenthal, Marcus Printup, Dave Stryker, Walt Weiskopf, Stefon Harris, Randy Napoleon, Benny Green, Aaron Diehl, Frank Wess, Bobby Watson, Xavier Davis, Danny Grissett, Vincent Gardner, Darmon Meader, Sachal Vasandani, and many more.

Mr. Davis keeps an active performance schedule and travels internationally to perform. He has many video lessons on jazz drumming and interviews with master drummers available on his YouTube channel. He is a proud endorser of Zildjian cymbals, Tama drums, and Vic Firth drumsticks.

Over the past 20 years, Marshall Gilkes has established himself as one of the world’s preeminent trombonists. His debut leader date—2004’s Edenderry—was an instant head-turner, presenting ear-catching compositions that showcase dexterous slide work and an appreciation for high-level interplay. Released on the heels of his appearance as a finalist in the 2003 Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Trombone Competition, it served as a clear indicator of his emerging artistry. He then looked toward the quintet format for 2008’s Lost Words and 2012’s Sound Stories. Underscoring his many and varied strengths on trombone, each of those releases also highlighted his work as a composer. But it was a pair of albums with Germany’s WDR Big Band—an outgrowth of the trombonist’s four-year tenure with that ensemble (from 2010 to 2014)—that took things to the next level. 2015’s Köln—offering a 360-degree look at Mr. Gilkes as a writer, arranger, conductor, and soloist—was a triumph of epic proportions, earning rave reviews and a pair of Grammy nominations. An equally impressive follow-up—2018’s Always Forward—served as a compelling companion piece, cementing his status as one of the great big-band composers of the modern era. With his two most recent outings—2020’s Waiting to Continue and 2022’s Cyclic Journey—he furthered his unique musical outlook while fulfilling long-held ambitions of two very different sorts: The former finds him leading a piano-less trio, and the latter unites an all-star brass octet with a blue-chip jazz combo to present an original suite built to represent daily life in all its grounding glory.

Through those seven albums, Mr. Gilkes has carved out his place as a leader of note. And with his work as a first-call sideman, in parallel to those efforts, he’s demonstrated incomparable might and adaptability. He has made his mark performing and/or recording with bassist Carlos Henriquez, harpist Edmar Castañeda, the New York Philharmonic, the Brass Band of Battle Creek, Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Slide Monsters, bassist Richard Bona, pianist Makoto Ozone, and numerous other top-tier musicians and outfits. His vast experience and genre-straddling skills have made him an in-demand educator, reflected by his current position on the faculty at the New England Conservatory. An S. E. Shires Artist, he performs on his signature model trombone—an instrument as versatile as its inspiration.

Recognized by The New York Times as “a trumpeter of versatility and poise,” Tatum Greenblatt is widely regarded as one of New York City’s most in-demand trumpet players. He appears frequently with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, in performances at Rose Theater, and on tour domestically. His recent recordings include The Fifties: A Prism, Big Band Holidays II, and Ted Nash and Glenn Close’s Transformation. He was a member of the Grammy Award–winning Mingus Big Band for more than 15 years, performing regularly in New York and touring internationally. From 2010 to 2016, he toured with legendary bassist and singer Richard Bona, traveling to more than 60 countries across six continents, and has also performed and/or recorded with Blood Sweat & Tears, George Gruntz, Dr. John, Christian McBride’s Big Band, Jimmy Heath, Sachal Vasandani, Christian Sands, Ulysses Owens, Emmet Cohen, Macklemore, Bastille, Grizzly Bear, Shaina Taub, Orrin Evans, Roy Hargrove’s Big Band, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. He is also active on Broadway, having played on more than 20 productions, including three years on Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. As a bandleader, he has released three albums to critical acclaim. His most recent, Imprints, was named a critics’ pick by DownBeat magazine. In addition to his performance career, he is a dedicated educator. He currently serves on faculty at The Juilliard School. He also performs many roles in the education department at Jazz at Lincoln Center, including serving as director of the award-winning Jazz at Lincoln Center Youth Orchestra.

Bassist, vocalist, producer, label owner, and now filmmaker Mimi Jones has reigned supreme for more than two decades, appearing as a side woman to an impressive coterie of musicians and as a leader with three albums on her own label, Hot Tone Music, featuring the Mimi Jones Band. Her newest release for the label, Feet in the Mud, is her most powerful recording to date and refers to being true to oneself. She is supported by an engaging and ingenious collection of musicians including pianist Jon Cowherd, drummer Jonathan Barber, and saxophonist Samir Zarif.

Born in New York City of parents from Barbados and raised in the Bronx, Ms. Jones is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, and she has studied with Lisle Atkinson, Ron Carter, Linda McKnight, Milton Hinton, and others. She has toured extensively throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, and the Caribbean Islands and is recognized as a US Jazz Ambassador. Her vast work as a side woman includes gigs with Kenny Barron, Frank Ocean, Dianne Reeves, Tia Fuller, Ingrid Jensen, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Marc Cary, Toshi Reagon, Rachel Z, Sean Jones, Ravi Coltrane, and Terri Lyne Carrington’s Grammy Award–winning Mosaic Project.

Ms. Jones also serves as co-director with Arcoiris Sandoval of The D.O.M.E. Experience, a multimedia project created to inspire its audience to become aware of environmental and social issues within the community and globally through choreography, composition, and cinematography.

Erica Von Kleist’s performing career has spanned experiences from touring with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to performing in the pits of Broadway, in addition to numerous studio albums and sharing the stage with luminaries from all walks of the entertainment world. But teaching has always been a common thread that has sustained her both financially and spiritually.

After graduating from The Juilliard School, Ms. Von Kleist held a teaching artist position with Feel the Music, a nonprofit that works with children who lost a parent in the 9/11 World Trade Center attack. Over the years, she has been a guest lecturer at the Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard, Stanford University, New England Conservatory, University of North Carolina Greensboro, and many high schools. In addition, she has been a mainstay educator for Carnegie Hall’s NYO Jazz program as an adjudicator and faculty member. In 2019, she self-published “A Cool Approach to Jazz Theory,” an informational workbook that walks novice improvisers through the most basic theoretic concepts, taking the mystery out of chord symbols, progressions, extensions, and alterations. The book has been used as a curriculum for several schools in the US, Canada, and Cuba.

That same year, as a part of her nonprofit Groovetrail, she launched the Flathead Ellington Project, a high-school jazz ensemble from the Flathead area of Montana, where she was residing at the time. The project culminated in a trip to New York, where the students performed at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem.

In January 2023, Ms. Von Kleist relocated back to New York City for an opportunity to teach business at the Manhattan School of Music. Backed with seven years of experience running her own for-profit and nonprofit companies in Montana, she developed a curriculum aimed at providing basic financial and entrepreneurial literacy to budding music professionals. Her concept has now snowballed into a web series launching soon on Patreon entitled “The Business of the Music Business,” with new videos dropping regularly.

Marvin Sewell was born and raised in Chicago. As a child, he learned how to play the guitar with Chicago basement bands, and he played acoustic guitar at a Catholic church. He was also exposed to a variety of styles of music that included blues, gospel, soul, rock, and fusion. In high school, he performed with the Malcolm X Community College Big Band. From there, he started performing with many famous local Chicago musicians such as Von Freeman, Ramsey Lewis, Billy Branch, Jodie Christian, Big Time Sarah, and Barbara LeShoure. He attended Roosevelt University in Chicago, where he studied composition.

Mr. Sewell moved to New York in 1990. His first performances in New York were with an Algerian pop-music band. He has since appeared with bands that play many different styles of music, ranging from acoustic to electric music. He has recorded albums with Jack DeJohnette, Diedre Murray, and Gary Thomas. He also played in Hannibal Lokumbe’s composition African Portraits, an opera in which he played blues slide guitar in collaboration with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, New Music Symphony, and Westchester Symphony Orchestra. He has performed and recorded with David Sanborn, Marcus Miller, Jorge Sylvester, Greg Osby, Joe Lovano, George Benson, Sekou Sundiata, and Peter Herborn.

In 1995, Mr. Sewell began appearing with Cassandra Wilson, with whom he played a variety of string instruments for six years. On her album Traveling Miles, he co-wrote the song Right Here, Right Now, and he was the music director of her band for a little over a year. In summer 2001, he went on tour with Sekou Sandiata and Ani DiFranco.

In 2002, Mr. Sewell toured eastern Africa with the Newsome, Sewell, and Harris Trio. The group performed in Kenya, Malawi, Botswana, Mozambique, and Mauritius. Today, he spends most of his time writing music for his own band, The Marvin Sewell Group. He has performed all over New York City and is preparing to release his debut recording under his own name.

Helen Sung is an acclaimed pianist and composer. Born and raised in Houston, she studied classical piano and violin and attended Houston’s renowned High School for the Performing & Visual Arts (HSPVA). After continuing her classical piano studies at the University of Texas at Austin, she went on to graduate from the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance at the New England Conservatory and win the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Jazz Piano Competition.

Now based in New York City, Ms. Sung has worked with such luminaries as Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Wynton Marsalis (who named her as one of his “Who’s Got Next: Jazz Musicians to Watch”), MacArthur Fellows Regina Carter and Cecile McLorin Salvant, and Terri Lyne Carrington in her Grammy-winning Mosaic Project. Ms. Sung and her band have performed at major festivals and venues that include Newport, Monterey, SFJAZZ, Disney Hall, and Carnegie Hall. Internationally, her NuGenerations project toured southern Africa as a US State Department Jazz Ambassador, and recent engagements include debuts at the London Jazz Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center Shanghai, Blue Note Beijing, and the Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival. In addition, she currently performs with fine ensembles including the Mingus Big Band and Salvant’s Ogresse.

Ms. Sung followed her jazz chart-topping Concord Jazz release Anthem For A New Day with Sung With Words, a collaborative project with the celebrated American poet Dana Gioia. In 2020, she was awarded an NYC Women’s Fund grant for Quartet², a project combining her jazz quartet with a string quartet. She has also completed composition commissions for the West Chester University Poetry Conference, North Coast Brewing Company, JazzReach, and a composer residency at Flushing Town Hall.

Inspired by her experience at the Monk Institute, Ms. Sung stays involved in music education through residencies and workshops, and also produced a Jazz Week program benefiting underserved youth in Camden, New Jersey. In 2017, the University of Texas College of Fine Arts awarded her its most prestigious honor—the E. William Doty Distinguished Alumna Award—and HSPVA inducted her into its Jazz Hall of Fame. She has served on the jazz faculties at the Berklee College of Music, The Juilliard School, and Columbia University. She was named a Steinway Artist in 2020.

Reginald Thomas can be seen fronting his own groups—the Mardra/Reggie Thomas Ensemble and organ trio OGD—on both piano and Hammond organ, and performing as sideman with great artists that include Hamiet Bluiett, Ann Hampton Callaway, and the Carl Allen / Rodney Whitaker ensemble. He often performs with the legendary Count Basie Orchestra as accompanist at the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition.

Mr. Thomas appears as guest artist at collegiate jazz festivals around the country, including those at Lawrence University, the University of South Florida, and Texas Tech University. He has also performed internationally, in Tokyo, Bangkok, Macau, Jakarta, Calgary, Milan, Warsaw, Poznan, Senegal, and London. In recordings, he has collaborated with Clay Jenkins, Kim Richmond, and Clark Terry / Mike Vax. His latest recording with his wife, Mardra—Matters of the Heart (MRT Jazz)—was released in 2015. Mr. Thomas has been awarded the Excellence in the Arts Award from the Arts and Education Council of St. Louis, and was named best jazz artist by the Riverfront Times in 2005.

After almost 20 years as professor of music at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and three years at Michigan State University as professor of jazz piano, Mr. Thomas now leads the Northern Illinois University School of Music’s jazz studies program. He also works as consultant and clinician with Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington Program and Band Director Academy. He is an active member of summer jazz faculties in the US and abroad, and a frequent director of all-state jazz bands, combos, and choirs. Mr. Thomas earned his master’s degree in music education from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and his bachelor’s degree from Western Illinois University.