NYU Steinhardt Jazz a huge success at IAJE -

NYU Steinhardt Jazz a huge success at IAJE

NYU Steinhardt Jazz was a huge presence and success at the 2008 International Association of Jazz Educators Convention in Toronto, January 10-13th. With approximately 10,000 jazz educators and students in attendance, NYU Steinhardt Jazz was represented by student and world class faculty ensembles and an exhibit booth.

As an exhibitor, we unveiled the NYU Jazz Master Class DVD Series: seven DVD's professionally filmed at NYU and edited featuring jazz legends teaching and performing with NYU Steinhardt Jazz students. We continually displayed excerpts from the DVD series on a large flat screen TV at the booth. The DVD's are being sent free of charge to those schools providing archival quality jazz performance and pedagogy treasures and a global outreach by NYU Steinhardt in one of the premiere indigenous American art forms, Jazz, in the Jazz Mecca of the world, our back yard, Greenwich Village.

Hundreds of students and faculty viewed portions of the DVD while visiting our booth in Toronto and were both amazed at the quality and delighted to notice that Dave Schroeder, who was in the booth, was also hosting portions of the DVD that was playing on the large flat-screen TV immediately behind him. We owe deep thanks to Artist's House which provided the DVD's and partnered with us in the creation of the DVD's.

Two NYU Steinhardt Jazz performances at the huge convention are worthy of special note. First, "The Delirium Blues Project," an ensemble created by Half Note Records featuring legendary jazz trumpet player Randy Brecker and world-renowned NYU Jazz faculty member/pianist Kenny Werner added NYU Steinhardt Jazz faculty members (trombonist) Mark Patterson and saxophonist) Dave Schroeder as well as NYU Jazz students Adam Stoler and Jonah Parzen-Johnson to their ensemble for the convention's "keynote" performance in the
main ballroom. This ensemble, heavily constituted of NYU Steinhardt Jazz faculty and students, was attended to room capacity by 2,000 students and educators and concluded with a standing ovation.

In addition, full-time NYU Steinhardt Jazz faculty member Gabriel Alegria led his Afro-Peruvian Ensemble in a concert which drew over 1,000 students and educators. The group's groundbreaking performance of Afro-Peruvian influenced jazz was new to many of the listeners. During the concert, Gabriel -- who leads the band and provided commentary about the music to the audience – proudly announced, in Spanish and English, that he was recently appointed to the full-time Jazz faculty at NYU and proclaimed that he is convinced that NYU Steinhardt has the top jazz program in the world.

Fron L to R: Kenny Werner, Roseanne Vitro, Randy Brecker, Dave Schroeder, Mark Patterson, Jonah Parzen-Johnson, and Adam Stoler

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