JAZZ EDUCATORS OF IOWA
Providing Jazz Resources for Iowa’s Educators
IOWA ALL-STATE JAZZ
The Iowa All State Jazz Bands sponsored by JEI have provided hundreds of students an opportunity to interact with America's leading jazz educators and master musicians. Over the years, our Iowa All State Jazz Bands have served jazz students with a "spring board" to numerous exciting careers in the music field. Selection to these groups is by recorded (blind) audition. Students interested in applying will submit recordings of their playing using a prescribed - downloadable - etude, samples of improvisation and scales of their choosing.
If you or your students have the desire, there may be a place for them in this year's group!
2012 All-State Jazz Audition Information
2012 All-State Jazz Entry Form
2012 All-State Jazz Etudes and Recordings
This year’s directors:
Class 4A - John Fedchock
Since his emergence on the scene in 1980, John Fedchock has established himself as a world-class trombone soloist, a heralded bandleader, and a Grammy-nominated arranger. An in-demand performer and writer in New York City for over thirty years, his critically acclaimed John Fedchock New York Big Band has become a marquee group, showcasing Fedchock's trombone and arranging as well as the band's all-star soloists. The band's four CDs for the Reservoir Music label have all received high praise from critics and extraordinary success on national jazz radio charts. In recognition of his formidable arranging skills, Fedchock received a 2003 Grammy Award nomination for "Best Instrumental Arranging". The JFNYBB's recent release, "Up & Running," spent eight weeks in jazz radio's Top Ten, with the New York Times applauding the band's "Cheerful Syncopation, Served With Spit-and-Polish Precision". His NY Sextet features Fedchock's "incomparable trombone playing, which seems to have no limit, technically or musically" (JazzReview.com). The sextet's most recent CD "Live at the Red Sea Jazz Festival" reached #4 in national radio airplay and made JazzWeek's Top 100 CDs for 2010.
Fedchock began his career as a jazz trombonist when he joined the legendary Woody Herman Orchestra in 1980. He toured with Woody's "Thundering Herd" for seven years, during which time he was musical director and a featured soloist. He served as musical coordinator and chief arranger in the production of Herman's last two Grammy Award nominated albums. Famed jazz critic Leo nard Feather called him the "unsung hero" of Woody's "50th Anniversary Tour" album and Woody said of Fedchock, "He's my right hand man. Everything I ask of John he accomplishes, and I ask a lot. He's a major talent." DOWN BEAT magazine stated that "it was the young blood of musicians like Fedchock that helped keep Woody Herman's last years musically healthy and growing". Fedchock has toured with T.S. Monk, Gerry Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band, Louie Bellson's Big Band, the Bob Belden Ensemble, the Manhattan Jazz Orchestra, and the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, and has performed at jazz festivals and concert halls around the world as a solo artist/composer/conductor. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Fedchock is a graduate of The Ohio State University with degrees in Music Education and Jazz Studies. He also holds a master's degree in Jazz Studies and Contemporary Media from the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Fedchock is jazz trombone instructor at Purchase College in Purchase, NY and Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. He is a clinician and soloist for Courtois Brass, and many of his jazz compositions and arrangements are published by Kendor Music, Inc.
Class 3A - Mike Steinel
Mike Steinel is a jazz trumpeter, pianist, composer and arranger. He is presently Associate Professor of Jazz Studies at the University of North Texas, where he teaches jazz improvisation, pedagogy of jazz improvisation and a jazz trumpet master class.
Mike has served on the faculties of numerous jazz camps, including the Clark Terry Jazz Camp and the Jamey Aebersold Improvisation Workshop. He has performed with many notable jazz artists, including Clark Terry, Don Ellis, Bill Evans and Jerry Bergonzi, and has recorded with the Chicago Jazz Quintet and the Frank Mantooth Big Band. He leads the UNT Faculty Jazz Quintet that performs throughout the United States and Scandinavia.
Mike is the author of a book on jazz improvisation entitled Building a Jazz Vocabulary and has published many compositions for jazz ensemble. He is also the author of Essential Elements for Jazz Ensemble, a comprehensive method for jazz style and improvisation for young players published by Hal Leonard Corporation. In 1993, he served as Co-Chair of the Jazz Advisory Panel for the National Endowment for the Arts. Mike holds degrees from Emporia State (BME) and North Texas State University (MME).
Class 1A/2A - Juan Tony Guzmán
Conductor, composer, arranger, and music educator from the Dominican Republic. Guzmán is currently director of the jazz program and associate professor of music education at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. He has conducted All-State, honor festivals, recording studio, shows, summer camps choirs, concert bands, jazz bands, and orchestras in several countries during the past thirty years. He has written many arrangements of Caribbean and Latin American music, some of which are published by Boosey & Hawkes and Oxford University Press. Recent clinics and presentations include the Dominican Republic National System of Youth Orchestras, World Choral Symposium, the Music Educators National Conference, Associação de Regentes de Corais do Brasil, The Association of British Choral Directors, the Scottish Association for Music Education, All-State Festivals, and the Festival 500 in Canada, among others.
Guzmán holds a Ph.D. in Music Education from the Florida State University and a degree in Electromechanical Engineering from the Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra in Santiago, Dominican Republic. Guzmán received a bachelor’s degree from Luther College, and a master’s degree from Florida State University in music education. While attending Florida State, he also received a certificate in pedagogy of music theory. He frequently serves as a guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator in national and international festivals.
Click here to see a list of past artists and clinicians who have conducted these ensembles.
