Legendary drummer Joe Chambers will conduct a master class and perform with the Emory Big Band and jazz faculty ensemble Professors at Play as a part of National Jazz Appreciation Month in April 2015.
Chambers has worked with some of the most influential jazz figures of the last several decades and is a recognized perfomer and composer whose works have been performed at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. As a sideman and leader, Chambers has recorded more than 500 albums and CDs. He has performed and recorded with Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Dizzy Gillespie, Andrew Hill and many more. Chamber’s credits include Hubbard’s “Breaking Point,” Hutcherson’s “Components,” Shorter’s “Schizophrenia.” and “Etcetera,” Hill’s “Compulsion,” and Tyner’s “Tender Moments,” as well as Archie Shepp’s “New Thing at Newport,” Charles Mingus’ “Like a Bird,” Chick Corea’s “Tones for Joan’s Bones,” and many others. Chambers’ compositions have been covered by Hutcherson, Hubbard and M’Boom; he has also contributed to soundtracks for several Spike Lee films, including “Mo’ Better Blues.” Chambers is the first Thomas S. Kenan Distinguished Professor of Jazz in Department of Music at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His most recent recording features his compositions in the setting of a live big band, ”Moving Pictures Orchestra: Live at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola.” It was released in May 2012 under the Savant label and was nominated for a Grammy in 2013.