UNC Jazz Press

(Level IV) A straight-ahead tribute to Benny Golson. Trumpet and tenor sax are featured in lengthy solo spots requiring mature players. Recorded on the Sea Breeze CD, Chuck Owen and the Jazz Surge. 9 Brass

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CHUCK OWEN is Professor of Jazz Studies at the University of South Florida in Tampa where he is noted for developing the jazz program into one of national prominence. While maintaining a very active profile as an educator, he has increasingly been recognized for his compositional output. As director of the Jazz Surge, a collection of Florida's finest jazz and freelance musicians, Chuck composed, arranged and conducted all of the music on the Surge's 2001 and 1996 releases on Seabreeze Records. With guest artists such as Benny Golson, Nat Adderley, John Abercrombie, Tim Hagans, Danny Gottlieb, Adam Nussbaum and Mike Smith taking turns sitting in; praise and recognition for the ensemble's efforts has been swift and widespread. Honored as the recipient of the 2000 ASCAP/IAJE commission in honor of Louis Armstrong, Chuck's piece, Red Beans and Ricely Yours, was premiered in January of 2001 at the opening session of the IAJE conference in New York by the Surge. Other recent projects have included a number of arrangements for the Netherlands' Metropole Orchestra, a performance/broadcast by the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, charts for colleague Jack Wilkin's latest CD, commissions by the Air Force Reserve Band and a three movement work for trumpet, trombone and string quartet. Previous credits include works for the Tonight Show Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony and string quartet charts for the alternative rock group Seven Mary Three among others. Chuck also leads a unique sextet culled largely from the ranks of Surge called Resurgence. This group was featured at the 2000 IAJE Conference in New Orleans. Owen, a graduate of California State University/Northridge and the University of North Texas, is the recipient of 15 ASCAP Composer Awards, a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the USF Publications Council and the USF Research Council. He has served as a Florida Branch Governor for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and as the National Composition Chairman for the International Association of Jazz Educators. He has authored several articles and reviewed new music for the Jazz Educators' Journal. He is a frequent featured guest artist and clinician at universities and jazz festivals throughout the country.