Day Two: Next Steps for Success with your Beginning Jazz Band
Clinic Synopsis:
Following a 15-minute break from “Day One,” clinicians Antonio García and Don Zentz will demonstrate strategies for “Day Two” success for your beginning jazz band. This session will focus on developing call-and-response phrasing, teaching improvisation, and utilizing great recordings that reinforce concepts. A middle school jazz band will provide an actual rehearsal lab experience for all present and will perform a tune demonstrating the results of the concepts scaffolded in the “Day One” and “Day Two” sessions.
Antonio Garcia
- Biographical Information
Antonio J. García is a performer, composer/arranger, producer, clinician, educator, and author in both instrumental and vocal genres. He has performed as trombonist, bass trombonist, or pianist with 70 major artists including Ella Fitzgerald (50 shows), George Shearing, Billy Eckstine, Louie Bellson, Dave Brubeck, and Phil Collins (two-month tour plus album) and at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Royal Festival Hall, and the Montreux and North Sea Jazz Festivals. The former Director of Jazz Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, an alumnus of the Eastman School of Music and of Loyola University of the South, and a Conn Selmer clinician/soloist and avid scat-singer, he has received grants from Meet The Composer, the Thelonious Monk Institute, The Commission Project, the Council for Basic Education, and others. His compositions are released through a dozen publishers, his indie-film scores screened across the globe, with a recent commission performed at Carnegie Hall by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Tony’s books include Jazz Improvisation: Practical Approaches to Grading (Meredith Music) and Cutting the Changes: Jazz Improvisation via Key Centers (Kjos Music). He was Co-Editor/Contributing Author of Teaching Jazz: A Course of Study (MENC/NAfME), served for ten years as Editor for the International Association for Jazz Education Journal, then twenty years as Jazz Editor for the International Trombone Association Journal, and has served as President of IAJE-IL, Advisory Board Member of the Brubeck Institute, a board member of the Illinois Coalition for Music Education, and a Network Expert for the Jazz Education Network. Most of all, Tony is dedicated to assisting musicians towards finding their joy. His 35-year full-time teaching career and countless residencies in schools have touched tens of thousands of students in Canada, Europe, South Africa, Australia, The Middle East, and across the U.S. His collaborations highlighting jazz and social justice have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, providing education to students and financial support to African American, Latinx, LGBTQ+, and Veterans communities, children’s medical aid, and women in jazz. He serves as a Research Faculty Member at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His partnerships with South Africa focusing on racism and healing resulted in his performing at the Nelson Mandela National Memorial Service in D.C. in 2013. He also fundraised $5.5 million in external gift pledges for the VCU Jazz Program. Tony is the only director of all three genres of Illinois All-State jazz ensembles—combo, vocal jazz choir, and big band—possibly the only individual to have led similarly in the country. Tenured at Northern Illinois, Northwestern, and Virginia Commonwealth universities, he received NIU’s Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching award, is a member of the Conn Selmer Institute Hall of Fame, received the VCU School of the Arts’ Faculty Award of Excellence, is a past nominee for CASE U.S. Professor of the Year, and is a recipient of The Midwest Clinic’s Medal of Honor. He resides in his native New Orleans, is Professor Emeritus at VCU, and is Secretary for The Midwest Clinic, for whom he has served on the board for three decades. Visit <www.garciamusic.com>.
Don Zentz - Biographical Information
Don Zentz is in his 40th year of teaching instrumental music at every level in education. He has earned a remarkable reputation throughout his career for consistently exhibiting a commitment and dedication to excellence, musicianship of the highest order, consummate professionalism and, most importantly, a student-centered philosophy and approach to teaching. He is an honor graduate of Valdosta State University where he earned a B.M. in music education with jazz studies emphasis, and a M.M.E.Don is in his tenth year as the Director of Jazz Studies at the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts (high school) in Jacksonville, FL. The flagship of the jazz program is Jazz Ensemble I. Under Don’s direction, the band has been incredibly successful at the national level having won the National Jazz Festival twice, Basically Basie, Swing Central, DownBeat Awards every year, and being selected to perform at conferences that include The Midwest Clinic, Jazz Education Network (New Orleans/Dallas/Orlando), and the Western International Band Clinic in Seatle. Just months ago both the Douglas Anderson Wind Symphony and Jazz Ensemble I were named national Mark of Excellence winners, reflecting the band program's foundational philosophy of total musicianship. Individual student awards have been many and include NYO Jazz, Music for All, and Next Gen Jazz Orchestra selection along with alumni matriculating at such schools as Juilliard, the Manhattan School of Music, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and The New School.Don was hired by jazz education pioneer Rich Matteson in 1990 to teach as an Associate Professor of Music on the jazz faculty at the University of North Florida (Jacksonville, FL). As the director of the top jazz ensemble at UNF, Don produced two critically acclaimed CD’s with the band, won the National Collegiate Jazz Festival, appeared at several IAJE conferences, received DownBeat Student Music Awards, and brought the band and jazz program to international awareness for the first time by performing at some of Europe’s most prestigious jazz festivals. As the artistic director and administrator of the Great American Jazz Series at UNF, his band performed in concert with a list of over fifty jazz artists that reads like a “who’s who” in jazz. These include Herbie Hancock, Arturo Sandoval, Maria Schneider, Joe Lovano, Terry Gibbs, Diane Schuur, Eddie Daniels, and Toshiko Akiyoshi. Don was named an Outstanding Undergraduate Professor at UNF in 1996 and received a TIP Award from the Florida Board of Regents the following year for excellence in teaching.Don has directed the All-State Jazz Bands of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Maine. He has been a Keilwerth Saxophones Performing Artist since 1995. For over 20 years, he was a per service saxophonist with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. He served two terms as president of the Florida Unit of IAJE and instituted a state jazz workshop for high school students. He has been an FBA jazz adjudicator for over 30 years and currently leads the jazz recertification seminars. In 1999, DownBeat Magazine awarded Don their Jazz Education Achievement Award primarily for his work at the University of North Florida, Florida Community College at Jacksonville, and leading the jazz division of the Georgia Governors Honors Program. In 2022, Don was inducted into the Jacksonville Jazz Festival Hall of Fame and named Jazz Educator of the Year by the National Jazz Festival. This past year, the Jazz Education Network selected Don as the recipient of their John LaPorta Jazz Educator Award.Don’s career reveals a deep passion for both the teaching and performing of music, and a commitment to kids! He credits his successes to his mentors – Bob Greenhaw, Rich Matteson, and Joe David – and to his loving wife of 39 years, Laurie.
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