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| Bob Brookmeyer Named 2006 Jazz Master Bob Brookmeyer, composer, arranger, trombonist, pianist, and director of the New England Conservatory Jazz Composers Workshop Orchestra, has been named a 2006 Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. The award carries with it a $25, 000 fellowship and invitations to participate in outreach efforts, broadcasts, and NEA Jazz Masters On Tour. Brookmeyer joins other present and past NEC faculty and alumni on the Jazz Masters list including George Russell and Cecil Taylor. From 1982 through 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts has designated eighty-seven artists of American music as NEA Jazz Masters, based on nominations submitted by the public. The program is part of an ongoing NEA project to support jazz artists and organizations that since 1970 has distributed millions of dollars in grants and awards. In conjunction with Jazz Masters’ designation, the NEA has also initiated a 50-state NEA Jazz Masters tour with performances and educational activities, television and radio programming and a compilation CD produced by Verve Music Group. Born in Kansas City, MO in 1929, Bob Brookmeyer studied composition at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music. Arriving in New York in 1952, he played with Claude Thornhill, Woody Herman, Teddy Charles, and Charles Mingus. In 1953, he joined Stan Getz, followed by stints with Gerry Mulligan, the Jimmy Giuffre Three and his own quintet with Clark Terry. Brookmeyer played and composed for the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra beginning with its founding in 1965, and after ten years in California returned as musical director for Mel Lewis and the Jazz Orchestra. Since 1981 he has been very active as composer, conductor, teacher, and performer in Europe, working in both classical and jazz idioms. His work as a composer has been recognized with a succession of NEA jazz composition grants. In 1994 he was appointed musical director of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival Big Band, a worldwide jazz-based ensemble dedicated to new music. This ensemble served as the nucleus for Brookmeyer’s 18-piece New Art Orchestra, which began touring in 2001. With that band, Brookmeyer has made three CDs on the Challenge label, New Works which was CD of the year in England, Waltzing with Zoë and Get Well Soon, which was nominated for a Grammy. Brookmeyer was commissioned by The 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic to write a piece for an EMI CD, featuring the German trumpet player, Till Broenner. He is currently at work on a concert length piece, Spirit Music, for the New Art Orchestra, to be recorded in January 2006. Brookmeyer will next lead the NEC Jazz Composers Workshop Orchestra in a concert December 13 in Brown Hall. write your comments about the article :: © 2005 Jazz News :: home page |