Steve Wiest


Steve Wiest is an American trombonist, composer, arranger, big band director, music educator at the collegiate level, jazz clinician, author, and illustrator/cartoonist. From 1981 to 1985, he was a featured trombonist and arranger with the Maynard Ferguson Band. Wiest is in his year as Associate Professor of Jazz Studies and Commercial Music at the University of Denver Lamont School of Music. He is the Coordinator of the 21st Century Music Initiative at the school. Wiest has been a professor for of the years that he has been a professional trombonist, composer, and arranger. From 2007 to 2014, Wiest was Associate Professor of Music in Jazz Studies at the University of North Texas College of Music and, from March 2009 to August 2014, he was director of the One O'Clock Lab Band and coordinator of the Lab Band program. At North Texas, Wiest also taught conducting, trombone, and oversaw The U-Tubes — the College of Music's jazz trombone band. Wiest is a three-time Grammy nominee — individually in 2008 for Best instrumental Arrangement and in 2010 for Best Instrumental Composition, and collaboratively in 2010 for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, which he directed. As of 2013, Wiest has in excess of 58 arrangements and compositions to his credit, which include 10 original compositions from his current project .''

Career

After attending Hattiesburg High School, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Wiest completed a bachelor's degree in Jazz Studies at the University of Southern Mississippi, mentored by Raoul F. Jerome. After graduation, he joined the band of Maynard Ferguson as a featured trombonist and one of two arrangers, touring five to seven months a year from 1981 to 1985.
In 1985, Wiest began graduate school at the University of North Texas, earning a master's degree in Jazz Studies in 1988. While there, he played lead trombone in the One O'Clock Lab Band, which toured Australia in 1986 and produced one live album, and four studio albums. Three of his compositions and one arrangement were recorded on Lab '86, Lab '87, and Lab '88, and another composition was recorded on Lab '89, after he graduated. As a grad student, Wiest directed the Nine O'Clock Lab Band, served as an arranging TA for Paris Rutherford, and directed the Three O'Clock Lab Band. Wiest studied trombone with Vern L. Kagarice, DMA. Independently, Wiest also studied trombone with Jay Friedman of the Chicago Symphony.
From 1988 to 1990, Wiest served as Assistant Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington, where, among other things, he ran the UTA Improvisation Camp and directed the Small Jazz Group Program.
For 17 years, from 1990 to 2007, Wiest was the Director of Jazz Studies and Trombone Performance at University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, directing jazz ensembles, which included a standard modern big band and the university's premier jazz band: an Art Blakey-style small group called The Jazz Symposium. He taught improvisation, music history, arranging, and classical trombone. For a number of years, Wiest was a member of the Faculty Brass Quintet
Establishing a small group, rather than a big band, as the premier jazz ensemble and intensified advanced music laboratory was a pedagogical innovation of Wiest. The Jazz Symposium produced two CDs, one featuring guest artist Ernie Watts. Under the direction of Wiest, The Jazz Symposium performed at the North Sea Jazz Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival, and King's College London
From 1994 to 1999, Wiest was a member of the Doc Severinsen Big Band. In 2006, Wiest reunited with Maynard Ferguson for Ferguson's final series of concerts: 6 nights, 12 sold-out performances at The Blue Note, Greenwich Village.
From the fall of 2007 until August 2014, Wiest was at the University of North Texas as Assistant Professor of Jazz Composition and Jazz Trombone. Wiest founded The U-Tubes, the College's trombone band. In May 2009, Wiest became director of One O'Clock Lab Band and coordinator of the Lab Band Program, after having served as interim director since August 2008.
In 2014 Wiest joined the faculty at the University of Denver Lamont School of Music as Coordinator of the 21st Century Music Initiative. Since 2016 he has served as Co-Chair of Jazz Studies.

2013–2014 project

In August 2013, Wiest, a sci-fi enthusiast, published a sci-fi novel, The Dover Stone: A Concerto for Folded Space. Wiest explains that it is built on inter-connected vignettes or movements that comprise an epic tale of life from other worlds and our place in the cosmos. The Term "folded space" is a theoretical speed of travel, faster than the speed of light, exceeding relativistic velocity by folding space, bringing far to near, reducing the long distances to a virtual zero. The tale is the impetus for ten compositions by Wiest, who describes the works as "programmatically informed" by the science fiction." The fictional vignettes culminate to answer real-life physicist Enrico Fermi's famous question, "Where is everybody?", a reference to the wonderment of life elsewhere in the universe. The stories occur in periods from 1182 to 2457.
The Steve Wiest Eclectic Electric Band will record the compositions as one album titled, Concerto for Folded Space. Wiest's compositional style ranges from straight ahead to jazz fusion, and sometimes pop-rock. With this project, Wiest is experimenting with serialism, not in a strict sense, but many elements are generated from rows.
The musical portion is an ArtistShare project and is scheduled for release early 2014. The band members are Wiest, Stockton Helbing, Braylon Lacy, Ryan Davidson, Noel Johnston, and Daniel Pardo. Guest artist are Bob Mintzer, Arlington Jones , and James Pankow.
Essentially, ArtistShare is the record label and represents Wiest's foray into an alternative model for producing music. ArtistShare is a fan-funded platform where artists provide content for patrons who subscribe to access levels of their choosing. For example, on November 6, 2013, Wiest uploaded one in a series of "cool stuff", as he phrased it, to the Participant Zone of his ArtistShare Concerto for Folded Space site. The "cool stuff" included a "programmatic" analysis and complete score for "The Flutes of Glastonbury", one of the ten compositions.
Other sci-fi inspired compositions
Other sci-fi-related works composed by Wiest include "Ice-Nine", a 2009 composition scored for big band, drawn from Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Cat's Cradle. "New Cydoinia", a 2010 big-band arrangement, is a programmatic representation of all of the theories and stories surrounding the enigmatic area on Mars known as Cydonia. "A Night in Pidruid", a 2006 composition scored for big band, is a programmatic and thematic development of characters and events in Robert Silverberg's Lord Valentine's Castle.'' "Blues From Space", a 1984 composition scored for big band, is a novelty tune about an alien who brings a philosophy of "Sing the Blues" to Earth.

Trombone manufacturer artist affiliations

  • Griego Mouthpieces — Wiest uses a Griego Artist Series trombone mouthpiece designed for him called the Griego-Wiest SW Model; the mouthpiece was commercially introduced April 2013
  • Edwards Trombones — Wiest performs on an Edwards trombone, called the "Excalibur", which was exclusively designed for him by Elias Christan Griego of Edwards Instruments
  • : ''For more information on Edwards Trombones, see Getzen''

    Professional affiliations

  • 1982 — Wiest became a member of ASCAP while composing and arranging for Maynard Ferguson; after a hiatus, he rejoined in 2009

    Awards and recognition

Academic
Professional
  • January 2007: Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship Award
  • 2010: ASCAP Plus Award, for creative contributions to American music during the year
  • Grammy nominations:
  • *2008: Best Instrumental Arrangement - for "Besame Mucho" from The One and Only
  • *2010: Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album - for "Lab 2009" by One O'Clock Lab Band; Best Instrumental Composition - for ''"Ice-Nine"''

    Personal life

Wiest lives in Chicago, Illinois with his fiancé Deborah Lamberty. He has three children from previous marriages - a daughter, Amber with Pam Sonmor Wintz, and two sons, Matthew and David with Carmen Smith. His father, John Thomas Wiest was a trombonist and his mother, Wanda Jean Smith Stegall was a special education teacher. Wiest has three siblings, Jeanne Stegall-Keene, Robert Wiest and Andrew Wiest, a professor of history at the University of Southern Mississippi. His cousin, Nick Drozdoff, is a jazz trumpeter and music educator based in the Chicago area who also played with Maynard Ferguson in the 1980s.

Works

Selected sessionography and discography

As leader
  • Steve Wiest Big Band
Excalibur
Recorded in Chicago, August 5, 6 & 19, 2005
Arabesque AJO180 ;
  • Quintet
Out of the New
Arabesque AJ0189
  • : Wiest ; Stefan Karlsson, Lynn Seaton, Ed Soph, and Fred Hamilton
  • The Steve Wiest Eclectic Electric Band
Concerto for Folded Space
ArtistShare
  • : Stockton Helbing, Braylon Lacy, Ryan Davidson, Noel Johnston, Daniel Pardo
  • : Featured guests: Bob Mintzer, Arlington Jones , James Pankow
As director of the One O'Clock Lab Band
  • Lab 2009 ;
  • Lab 2010 ;
  • Lab 2011 ;
  • Lab 2012 ;
  • Lab 2013 ;
  • Lab 2014
As director of the U-Tubes
  • The U-Tubes ;
As director of The Jazz Symposium, UW-Whitewater
  • Presenting the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Jazz Symposium
  • : Tracks 3 & 4 recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival, June 1996
  • : Track 7 recorded live at Irvin L. Young Auditorium, UW-Whitewater, February 1996
  • : Tracks 1 & 2, 5 & 6, 8 & 9 recorded in a studio 1996
  • The best of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Jazz Symposium: 1996–1997
As trombonist and arranger with Maynard Ferguson
Live, Studio, Hollywood, California, June 23 & 24, 1982
Palo Alto Records ;
  • Live From San Francisco
Recorded at the Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, May 27, 1983
Palo Alto PA8077N ;
  • Kool Jazz Festival
Recorded live for the Voice of America on July 3, 1982
Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Springs, New York;
  • The One And Only
Recorded at Bennett Studios, Englewood, New Jersey, July 25–30, 2006
Maynard Ferguson Trust ;
  • # "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone", arranged by Wiest
  • # "Besame Mucho", arranged by Wiest, Grammy nominee
As trombonist with the Frank Mantooth Jazz Orchestra
  • Per-se-vere
Recorded at Streeterville Studios, Chicago, October 5–7 & 29, 1989
Optimism Records, released by Sea Breeze;
  • Dangerous Precedent
Recorded at Streeterville Studios, Chicago, December 1991 to December 1992
Sea Breeze ;
  • Sophisticated Lady
Recorded January 23, April 24, December 13 & 14, 1994
Sea Breeze ;
As trombonist with other artists
  • Arch Martin
Jazz In Good Taste, Janelle
Recorded in Kansas City, July 3 & 4, 1993
Swingin' The Blues
Recorded in Hollywood, February 4 & 5, 1999
Azica Records & Naxos Digital ;
QuaDRUMvirate
Recorded in Powell, Wyoming, October 4, 1999
Progressive PCD-7123;
As student trombonist and arranger with the One O'Clock Lab Band
  • With Respect to Stan;
  • : Recorded at Chelsea Sound Studios, New York, 1986
  • Live in Australia – The 1986 Tour;
  • : Recorded at the Festival Theatre, Adelaide, Australia, July 20, 1986
  • Lab '86;
  • : Recorded at the Dallas Sound Lab, Irving, Texas, May 1986
  • : Trombonist and composer of "The Miles Files"
  • Lab '87;
  • : Recorded at the Dallas Sound Lab, Irving, Texas, May 17 & 18, 1987
  • Lab '88;
  • : Recorded at the Dallas Sound Lab, Irving, Texas, May 14 & 15, 1988
  • : Trombonist and composer of "On the Edge"
As composer and trombonist with other artists
  • One O'Clock Lab Band
Lab '89;
Recorded at the Dallas Sound Lab, Irving, Texas, April 30 & May 1, 1989"With You", composed & arranged by Wiest
  • Dan Cavanagh's Jazz Emporium Big Band
Pulse, OA2 Records 22048 ;
  • : Recorded at Crystal Clear Sound Recording Studios, Dallas, Texas, March 2 & 3, 2008
  • Stockton Helbing
For Nothing is Secret'', Armored Records ;
  • : Recorded in Dallas, Texas, December 13–15, 2006