John Daversa
John Daversa is a distinguished trumpet-player, composer, arranger, producer, bandleader and educator. He is a multiple Grammy Award winner and nominee and the recipient of many other awards and honors. In addition to his active career as a performer and recording artist he is currently Professor and Chair of Studio Music and Jazz at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music.
Daversa’s celebrated and distinctive musical perspective has been a passport to performances on world stages such as The Today Show, Late Nite with David Letterman, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Live 8 (Berlin), Hamburg Music Festival, Java Jazz Festival (Jakarta), Monterey Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, Montreux Festival, and the Playboy Jazz Festival. He has also had the opportunity to perform or record with artists such as Fiona Apple, Michael Bublé, Dori Caymi, Andraé Crouch, Sheryl Crow, Herbie Hancock, Bob Mintzer Big Band, and The Yellowjackets.
In 1996, he founded the John Daversa Progressive Big Band, which is one of the leading forces of modern jazz today. In 2011, the band released its first studio album, Junk Wagon: The Big Band Album, to critical acclaim winning Best in Show and Awards of Excellence in Creativity/Originality and Production in The Global Music Awards. “Daversa’s fearless exploration…takes him off the beaten path, as he creates bold and ballsy big band music for the modern epoch.”– AllAboutJazz.com
Daversa’s most recent project, All Without Words: Variations Inspired By Loren (release April 30, 2021) is a lush orchestral trumpet concerto played by the John Daversa Jazz Orchestra, composed by Daversa’s friend Justin Morell, and dedicated to Morell’s autistic son Loren. Celebrating the bond between a parent and child, the album is a paean to the trials, tribulations, successes and heart-warming moments of raising a non-verbal son.
JazzEd Article on John Daversa’s album Wobbly Dance Flower
In 2019 and 2020 Daversa was musical director and producer for two important projects spearheaded by women: in 2019, Daversa was musical director and co-producer for the album Shoulder to Shoulder: Centennial Tribute to Women’s Suffrage, by the Karrin Allyson Sextet. And in 2020, he musically directed, co-produced, and played on Regina Carter Freedom Band’s Swing States: Harmony in the Battleground. The same year, the John Daversa Quintet released Cuarentena: With Family at Home, an album of original and traditional Cuban boleros that paid homage to familial love and the healing power of music during the time of COVID, featuring musicians Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Carlo De Rosa, Dafnis Prieto, and Sammy Figueroa.
Daversa is dedicated to creating meaningful, honest music with positive intention. Surely his work will continue to gain recognition and his brilliance as both musician and educator will continue to thrive and entertain, bringing benefit both to students and music lovers throughout the world.
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Website:www.johndaversa.com
