PLEASE NOTE: The start/end date above is NOT the event date. This event will be held Dec. 7.

JOHNSON CITY (Posted Nov. 29, 2012) – Noted trumpeter, composer and bandleader Sean Jones will headline East Tennessee State University’s Fall Jazz at the Culp Concert – “Mack-Daddy Trumpet” – on Friday, Dec. 7.

The show begins at 7:30 p.m. in the D.P. Culp University Center’s Martha Street Culp Auditorium. Tickets at the door are $10 for general admission and $5 for students and seniors.

Jones, a Yamaha Performing Artist, was featured on the 2007 Grammy Award-winning album “Turned to Blue” by Nancy Wilson. As a bandleader, he has released five albums under the Mack Avenue Records label and is lead trumpet for the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, which also features Wynton Marsalis. He is also interim artistic director for the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra and frequently appears at jazz festivals throughout the United States and abroad.

Among Jones’ first musical experiences were the gospel music he heard while attending Saint James’ Church of God in Christ in Warren, Ohio, where he sang and performed with the choir. The young musician started on drums and switched to trumpet in the fifth grade after his grandmother told him about his grandfather playing that instrument during World War II.

In 2000, Jones obtained his undergraduate degree in classical trumpet performance at Youngstown State University and went on to earn his master’s degree at Rutgers University, where he studied under William Fielder, who also taught Marsalis.

Throughout his career, Jones has performed with such artists as Tia Fuller, Gerald Wilson, Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, Joe Lovano, Tom Harrell, Jon Faddis, Jimmy Heath and Frank Foster. His six-month stint with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra in 2004 led Marsalis to offer him a position with the ensemble as lead trumpet. Around the same time, he became a music professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where he currently lives.

Joining Jones during the concert will be the ETSU Jazz Combo, directed by Martin Walters, and the ETSU Jazz Ensemble, directed by Dr. David Champouillon.

The ETSU Jazz Program offers courses in large and small jazz ensemble, history of jazz, jazz improvisation and theory, pedagogy, and applied study. Student musicians in the program perform many different styles of jazz throughout the region, and have appeared at the Mountain Empire Jazz Festival, Tri-Cities Jazz Fest and Virginia Highlands Jazz Fest. They have also had the opportunity to share the concert stage with such notable artists as Maynard Ferguson, Jon Faddis, Vince DiMartino, Ron Modell, Al Hood, Marvin Stamm, Bill Mays, Rufus Reid, Ed Soph, Vaughn Nark, Pete BarenBregge and Ed Shaughnessy, as well as Lenore Raphael.

For more information or special assistance for those with disabilities, contact Champouillon at (423) 439-6955.