Department of Music Jazz Faculty

 

Wilson Brown

 

For 12 years Brown was the arranger, conductor and keyboardist for the singing group, The Lettermen, logging thousands of miles on worldwide concert tours, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Japan, the Philippines and Hong Kong. In this capacity he recorded and did arranging for 45 albums and numerous singles, and performed at all the major American nightclubs and concert venues. The Lettermen were for several years the top college entertainment draw. Brown appeared with them on many television shows, such as The Tonight Show, The Dinah Shore Show, The Dean Martin Show, Sammy Davis Jr., Hollywood Palace, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas and the Jerry Lewis Telethon, and film-recorded theme songs for such movies as "The Pendulum" and "Where Were You When The Lights Went Out?"

Some jazz and music greats with whom Brown was associated during this time included James Moody, Skeets Herfert, Garnett Brown, Bill Tole, Ray Brown, Tommy Tedesco, Vic Feldman, Max Bennett, Ollie Mitchell, George Roberts, Joe Sample and Jerome Richardson.

Mr. Brown began his professional career at age 15, performing jazz organ on station KSL-TV in Salt Lake City. He spent summers as an organist and pianist at Grand Canyon North Rim. While obtaining his B.A. in music at the University of Utah, he cut his jazz teeth on local club gigs and doing piano chores in the Mel Hall Big Band at the Terrace, where he backed pop and jazz artists, such as The Hi-Lo's, The Four Preps, Peter, Paul & Mary, and The Four Freshmen. He backed Nat "King" Cole at Lagoon, a Utah resort. Mr. Brown’s piano studies include classical piano with Mabel Borg Jenkins, whose students included pianist Grant Johannesen, and jazz piano with Shelly Hyde. He learned jazz writing and arranging essentially on his own, except for some jazz theory under Dr. William Fowler. Graduate study was done at Brigham Young University, where he was a charter member of the fledgling (student-organized) university jazz program, now become one the finest in the nation.

Before joining The Lettermen, Mr. Brown worked the studios in Los Angeles for many years. While there he gigged on piano and trombone with Onzy Matthews (with Lou Rawls as vocalist), Rene Touzet, Sonny & Cher, Sammy Nestico and actress Dyan Cannon, for whose first solo album he arranged the orchestration. He arranged Olita Adams's first album and the music for The Miss California World pageant.

Regionally Wilson Brown has done arranging and music preparation for Lex de Azevedo, preparing for publication the vocal/piano scores for "My Turn On Earth", Saturday's Warrior" and "Debbie, Diary of a Mormon Girl". He continues to be contracted for numerous arranging assignments - classical, jazz and pop.

For the past 25 years he served as Director of Jazz Studies at Ricks College (now Brigham Young University-Idaho). His top college ensemble, Sound Alliance, regularly entered competition at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival and won honors every year they appeared. His student combos and soloists also took prizes, often against much larger universities. For 21 years he was music director for the college's Showtime Company, a vocal and dance-oriented stage revue, backed by a 10-piece jazz combo. This group performed throughout the U.S., Canada, the British Isles and South Africa, for thousands of spectators.

Currently retired from full-time employment, Mr. Brown teaches jazz piano adjunct for BYU-Idaho and plays piano for Swingset, the university faculty jazz ensemble. This group has released a CD, "My Favorite Things" and is preparing to record another. It toured in Italy the summer of 2001 and has been invited back for performances in Italy, plus venues in Spain, Switzerland and Austria the summer of 2004. Brown is in demand as an adjudicator at many jazz festivals throughout the intermountain west and keeps his trombone chops up as a member of a local swing/bebop big band.

He has been a member of the American Federation of Musicians since age 19, Music Educators National Conference, International Association for Jazz Education, and Jazz Arts of the Mountain West. Many of his former students perform professionally as jazz and commercial musicians or teach scholastic jazz programs throughout the country.

 

Jay Lawrence

 

Celebrated musician Jay Lawrence has been enjoying a diverse career as a performing artist, composer, arranger, clinician and adjudicator. His vast professional experience began at age 15 in Nevada showrooms where he worked for celebrities such as Liza Minelli, Sammy Davis Jr., Linda Ronstadt, Cher, Tom Jones, Dionne Warwick, Roy Clark, Ann-Margret, Gladys Knight, Lou Rawls, The Coasters and others. He has toured with Liberace, Chris LeDoux, The Osmond Brothers, James Moody and Enoch Train. Jay has many movie sound track, film trailer and television score credits. He has performed in concert with Brian Bromberg, Pete Christlieb, Cyrus Chestnut, Hank Jones, Phil Woods, Milt Jackson and many others. In addition Mr. Lawrence has recorded more than 80 albums, including recordings with Terrance Blanchard, Joey DeFrancesco, Mike Stern and Tom Garvin. Currently Jay is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Utah, and teaches Afro-Cuban concepts and advanced improvisation at Brigham Young University.

 

Ryan Nielsen

 

 

Ryan Nielsen joined the faculty of BYU - Idaho in 2006 and serves as trumpet instructor and Assistant Director of Jazz Studies. He holds a BM in Music Education from BYU - Idaho and an MM in classical trumpet performance from Arizona State University, where he studied with David Hickman. He has also studied with Marcellus Brown and Mark Lewis. His jazz studies have been with Mark Watkins, Mike Crotty, and Michael Kocour. Before coming to BYU-Idaho, Mr. Nielsen was a freelance artist in the greater Phoenix area, where he played principal trumpet in the St. Thomas Aquinas Orchestra, as well as playing in the Mike Crotty Big Band.

He played trumpet in the western premiere of Gunther Schuller’s Encounters, under the baton of Mr. Schuller, as well as John Corigliano’s Symphony #3 and was principal trumpet in the western premier of Khachaturian’s Symphony #3 for 18 Trumpets and Orchestra. He has played extensively with the Riverside Jazz Orchestra, where he played alongside Brent Jensen, Sandon Mayhue, Ernie Andrews, Harvey Mason, and the New York Voices. He has also appeared with Eric Marienthal, Ed Calle, Darryl White, Jay Lawrence, and Jerry Bergonzi. Mr. Nielsen has been a guest artist at the Gene Harris Jazz Festival as well as at Jazz in the Canyon. While studying at ASU, Mr. Nielsen received the prestigious Doc Severinsen Fellowship Award for outstanding classical and jazz trumpet performance. He has received numerous other awards for his playing, including first place at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival.

 

David Taylor

 

Dr. David Taylor holds B.M. and B.A. degrees in Music Education and Music Composition from Utah State University, an M.A. in Music Theory/Composition from the University of Wyoming, and a D.M.A. from The Ohio State University specializing in music composition. He has studied composition and orchestration with Dean Madsen, Gary Smart, Mario Pelusi, and Elliot Schwartz; percussion with Dennis Griffin, Steve Hemphill, Jay Lawrence, and James Moore; and jazz improvisation with Larry Smith and James Moore.

Dr. Taylor has appeared with such artists as Danny Kaye, Roger Williams, Ed Calle, and Kurt Bestor. He has performed nationally with numerous percussion ensembles and new music groups including the New World Wind Quintet and is a founding member of the Brigham Young University-Idaho faculty jazz ensemble Swingset. Some of Dr. Taylor's many compositional achievements include a Young Composer's Grant from the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) and a Kuehn Foundation Grant. As a professional educator, he is the author of Basic Theory: An Interactive Introduction to the Fundamentals of Music. Dr. Taylor currently serves as the Director of Percussion Studies at BYU-Idaho where he founded the RixStix Percussion Group and instructs in music theory, history, music technology, and various percussion courses. He is the founder of the RixStix Percussion Group, a group of percussion ensembles providing performance opportunities on a variety of percussion instruments.

 

Mark Watkins

 

Dr. Mark Watkins received his baccalaureate from Brigham Young University and his masters and doctorate in five woodwind instruments from Indiana University's School of Music. He has studied saxophone with C. Raymond Smith, Eugene Rousseau, Daniel Deffayet, and Yushi Ishiwata and jazz with Ray Smith, Dominic Spera, and David Baker. Dr. Watkins has produced two CD recordings including the 1999 release Don't Step On Your Neck with the Hard-Bop Saxophone Quartet (Sea Breeze Jazz, Jazz Times 5/00, p.194) and the 2002 project My Favorite Things with Swingset (Rock House Records). His most recent concert tour (July, 2001) with Swingset, included performances throughout Italy. He is active as a composer publishing with Walrus Music and writing commissions for concert band, jazz ensemble, solo, and chamber ensembles. His research into saxophone tone production has lead to regional, national, and international presentations, including the 2000 World Saxophone Congress in Montreal, and a three-article series published in The Saxophone Symposium.

Dr. Watkins previously taught at North Dakota State University as Director of Woodwind Studies and is currently Director of Jazz Studies at Brigham Young University-Idaho.

 

 

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