April 22, 2021
University of Wyoming Department of Music faculty members Ben Markley and Andy Wheelock will team up with bassist Bob Bowman and trumpeter Dan Jonas for a virtual performance Wednesday, April 28.
The performance will be livestreamed at 7:30 p.m. from the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts concert hall. The group will play a collection of jazz standards and originals. To view the performance, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMXx6nWGL68.
Markley, a UW associate professor, is director of jazz studies and a jazz pianist. He has performed with well-known jazz musicians Brian Lynch, Eddie Henderson, Terell Stafford, George Garzone and John Fedchock. Compositions from each of Markley’s two albums earned him American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Foundation Young Jazz Composer Awards in 2007 and 2008. He co-leads the band Raincheck, which recently released a recording on the Dazzle Recordings label.
Explorations of the Journey – Pianist Ben Markley has curated a collection of the music that marks a new chapter in his music development. The set will feature original works from Ben and compositions by visionary living composers (including Herbie Hancock, Ari Hoenig, and John Scofield) who have pushed the rhythmic boundaries of the jazz idiom. The explore these works, Markley has assembled a new cast of musicians who are thoroughly conscientious, unselfish musicians dedicated to shaping sound and serving the music.
Ben Markley is an accomplished pianist, band leader and composer/arranger, active throughout the Rocky Mountain front range and has performed with Brian Lynch, Greg Osby, Eddie Henderson, Terell Stafford, George Garzone, Bobby Shew and John Fedchock and many others. Markley’s latest big band recording project Clockwise – The Music of Cedar Walton (OA2 records) earned a coveted four-star review by Downbeat Magazine in Spring of 2017. Markley is three-time Nocturne
Panamanian trumpeter Victor Vitin Paz
Victor “Vitín” Paz, considered by many to be the greatest lead trumpeter player of the modern era, died on April 3 at his home in Panama City, Panama. He was 89.
His death was confirmed by his close friend and student Ronaldo Whittaker.
Known for his technical virtuosity, soaring timbre and uncannily precise time feel, Paz was the most sought-after lead trumpeter of his time. The tally of his recording dates and live performances numbers in the thousands. As Wynton Marsalis wrote in 2015: “His tone is golden, attack pristine, accuracy and consistency definitive, and his ethics and integrity unsurpassed.”