Sean Jones

TAHLEQUAH — Acclaimed trumpeter and composer Sean Jones will headline the 55th Annual Green Country Jazz Festival this March.

The annual Judges Jam performance will take place at 8 p.m. on March 7 at the NSU Jazz Lab. Participants include Jones, two-time Grammy nominated organist and winner of Downbeat Magazine’s 2016 rising star poll Pat Bianchi, jazz saxophonist and clarinetist Jim Pisano, vibraphonist, marimbist and composer Nick Mancini and musician Dean DeMerritt.

On March 8, the Green Country Jazz Festival will take place at the Center for the Performing Arts. High school performances begin at 9 a.m. and the final concert featuring Jones and the NSU Jazz Ensemble will take place at 7 p.m.

Jones is an internationally recognized performer, educator and activist. From Warren, Ohio, Jones sang and performed from an early age with his church choir and started out playing the drums before switching to the trumpet at age 10.

A “musical chameleon,” Jones is comfortable performing in any musical setting no matter the role or genre. From 2004 to 2010, Jones was the lead trumpeter of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

In 2015, he went on to become a member of the SFJAZZ Collective. During this time, he led a group of talented musicians, forming the foundation for groups that produced and released eight recordings on Mack Avenue Records. His most recent is the 2017 release Sean Jones: Live from Jazz at the Bistro.

Throughout his career Jones has been featured on recordings and performed with major jazz figures including Illinois Jacquet, Jimmy Heath, Frank Foster, Nancy Wilson, Dianne Reeves, Gerald Wilson and Marcus Miller, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter. He has also performed with the Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Youngstown symphony orchestras, as well as Soulful Symphony in Baltimore and a chamber group at the Salt Bay Chamberfest.

He is currently the president of Jazz Education Network and holds the Richard and Elizabeth Case Chair in Jazz Studies at The John Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute in Baltimore. Jones also serves as artistic Director for the NYO JAZZ Program of Carnegie Hall. Previously, he served as chair of the Brass department at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

The Green Country Jazz Festival began back in 1967 and continues to bring in world renowned jazz artists to the area. It is also one of the country’s longest running jazz festivals. The festival is put on by NSU’s Department of Music not only for students and performers but for the community as well.

For more information about the festival call 918-444-4602.