Ed Neumeister
Ed Neumeister ( born September 1, 1952 in Topeka / Kansas) is an American jazz trombonist and composer.
Life and work
Neumeister played as a teenager trombone in a marching band in Oakland. From 1970 to 1973 he studied at the University of California in San Jose trombone with Bob Szabo and composition with Lou Harrison. After a stay in Amsterdam, he was in 1975 a student of Mitchell Ross in San Francisco. In 1978 he became first trombonist with the Sacramento Symphony Orchestra. During this time he also appeared with its own jazz quartet, which bore the name of New Ed Meistero Quartet and worked with musicians like Mark Levine, Jerry Granelli, Michael Formanek, Lincoln Goins, Clanence Beckton and Bruce Forman.
Neumeister in 1980 went to New York and became a member of the band of Lionel Hampton. After performing with the Buddy Rich Band he was 1981, the Mel Lewis Big Band (later Vanguard Jazz Orchestra ) with, with whom he worked for 18 years on a regular basis. In the same year his fifteen -year-long collaboration with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, which was led by Ellington's son Mercer began. From 1982 to 1984 he also appeared with Gerry Mulligan's Concert Jazz on tape.
In addition, Neumeister led his own quartet and quintet formations, which, inter alia, Jim McNeely, Kenny Werner, Harold Danko, Marc Copland, Victor Jones, Dennis Irwin, Drew Gress, Jay Anderson, Lincoln Goines, Jamey Haddad, John Riley and Billy Drewes belonged and with which he the album Metro Music and Mohican and the Great Spirit recorded.
In 1988, he founded the New Hat Ensemble, an octet, which among other things Joe Lovano, Kenny Werner and Don Byron belonged. On the occasion of the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of Duke Ellington Neumeister formed a group with Mark Feldman, Billy Drewes, Ron Miles, Marc Copland and Tom Rainey (or Jamey Haddad ), with which he undertook in 1999 and 2000 tours of Italy.
Since 1987, Neumeister studied composition with Bob Brookmeyer, the musical director of the Mel Lewis band and Manny Albam. His arrangement of A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, which he had written for the Mel Lewis band was nominated for a Grammy in 1992.
In the same year Kluvers Big Band invited him to a concert tour to Denmark. He became a professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz and moved to Vienna. Since 2000 is also Head of Department for jazz composition at the Musikhochschule Luzern. In Austria created the Cello Concerto and the Fantasy for Cello and Big Band, recorded with soloist Kleinhapl and the jazz big band Graz at the Ars label.
Selection Discography
- Mohican and the Great Spirit with Peter Eigenmann, Hämi Hammerli (TCB, 1996)
- The New York Trombone Quartet Plays: Collage with Joseph Alessi, James Pugh, David Taylor
- Ed Neumeister Quartet: New standards with Fritz Pauer, John Hollenbeck, Drew Gress
- Ed Neumeister Quintet: Metro Music with Billy Drewes, Jim McNeely, Dennis Irwin, Jamey Haddad