Division of Jazz Studies

Trumpeter, composer, and arranger David Weiss, a student in our program in the 1980s, leads an eleven-piece ensemble in his arrangements of music by Wayne Shorter at Iridium in New York this month. See davidweissmusic.com.

From the press release:

Wayne Shorter is one of the most important composers of the post be-bop era and perhaps the greatest jazz composer alive. His all-encompassing work starts with the hard bop classic compositions he wrote for Art Blakey, on to his groundbreaking Blue Note records which featured many tunes that have become timeless jazz standards, his innovative, conceptual records like "The All Seeing Eye", the music he wrote for the classic Miles Davis quintet, whose sound helped define an era in jazz, his fusion hits with Weather Report, his brilliant almost through composed work such as "Atlantis", and his later orchestral reworkings of some of his classic tunes. It is very unlikely there has been another composer who has covered more musical territory more brilliantly than Wayne Shorter. The concept of the Endangered Species band is to pay tribute to jazz' greatest living composer and approach his work as he would, as an ever changing, always evolving body of work. The group will perform music from all eras of Mr. Shorter's great career from the Blakey era ("Mr. Jin"), through music from "The All Seeing Eye" and classics from the Miles Davis era ("Fall"), up to his latest compositions from "Alegria" and "High Life".

Award winning composer (winner of the prestigious Chamber Music America Doris Duke Jazz Ensembles Project: New Works Creation and Presentation grant and the American Composers Forum's Jerome Composers Commissioning Program.) and arranger (Down Beat Critics Award, Rising Star Arranger) David Weiss has reimagined Mr.Shorter's work for a 11 piece mini big band that features many of the finest young players and rising stars on the jazz scene today including Jeremy Pelt, Keyon Harrold, Ingrid Jensen, Jimmy Greene, Myron Walden, Bill McHenry, Craig Handy, Josh Roseman, Joe Fiedler, Xavier Davis, Dwayne Burno, and EJ Strickland.