CCM Jazz Remembers Oscar Treadwell Nov. 12

The

University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music’s Jazz Studies

department celebrates the remarkable life of the late radio host and poet

Oscar Treadwell

with a concert event on

Sunday, Nov. 12

. The performance begins at 7 p.m. in CCM’s Patricia Corbett Theater on the UC campus, and admission is FREE and open to the public.

Oscar Treadwell, known as “OT” to fans, put his indelible stamp on the Cincinnati jazz scene until his passing in April 2006. Treadwell had hosted radio programs since 1947 both locally and elsewhere, earning respect throughout the jazz world and forging friendships with some of the art form’s greatest luminaries: Dave Brubeck, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk, to name a few. Most recently, Treadwell hosted a weekly program, “Jazz with OT,” on Sunday evenings on 91.7 WVXU.

Under the direction of CCM faculty members Paul Piller and Rick VanMatre, CCM’s two 18-piece big bands, the Jazz Lab Band and Jazz Ensemble, join forces to play compositions from the swing era to the present. Included on the evening’s program will be two pieces composed for OT over 50 years ago: “An Oscar for Treadwell” by Charlie Parker, and “Treadin’ with Treadwell” by Wardell Gray. Contemporary big band arrangements of these tunes have been written by Piller and jazz studies student Dan Martinez respectively.

VanMatre, CCM’s director of jazz studies, remarked, “Oscar’s passing was a tragic loss for the entire jazz world, for Cincinnatians in particular, and especially for our jazz students at CCM. There was a long-time connection between OT and our Jazz Studies department—he followed our students’ careers, supported them, even read poetry on stage with them—and of course they listened to his shows with deep fascination.”

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University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
Event Details

Jazz at CCM
A TRIBUTE TO OSCAR TREADWELL
Featuring the CCM Jazz Ensemble & Lab Band
Rick VanMatre and Paul Piller, directors

Date & Time:
Sunday, Nov. 12 ~ 7 p.m.

Description:
CCM salutes the late Oscar Treadwell, nationally recognized jazz radio host, with big band compositions from the swing era to the present.

Location:
Patricia Corbett Theater, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music

Admission:
FREE

Parking:
Available in the CCM Garage (at the base of Corry Boulevard off Jefferson Avenue) or additional garages throughout the UC campus

Additional Information:
(513) 556-4183 or www.ccm.uc.edu

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Oscar Treadwell

Oscar Treadwell’s career as a radio personality spanned the years from 1947 to 2006. His first radio job was at WEEU in Reading, Penn. From there he moved to WKDN in Camden, N.J., before joining WDAS in Philadelphia. His concentration in jazz led to friendships with many jazz luminaries including Dave Brubeck, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, many of whom immortalized him in music. First came Wardell Gray’s “Treadin’ with Treadwell,” then Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie created “An Oscar for Treadwell” in honor of their friend. Thelonious Monk followed suit with “Oska T.”

Treadwell moved to Cincinnati in 1960. He joined WZIP in 1962 and broadcast jazz on Saturday evenings for a year and half. In 1965 he joined the staff of WNOP and hosted a jazz program there until 1973. He then joined WGUC and developed “Jazz with OT,” which ran for 22 years. The program moved to WVXU and later to WAVE and WMKV, running until Treadwell’s retirement in June 2001. In August 2005 he rejoined the airwaves to bring “Jazz with OT” back to WVXU. In 1997 the University of Cincinnati awarded him an honorary doctorate of humane letters.

Paul Piller
Paul Piller has been a trombonist with Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Cincinnati Ballet Orchestra, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and the Broadway Series. He has been a composer, arranger, and performer with the Symphony Jazz Ensemble, Blue Wisp Big Band, PsychoAccoustic Orchestra, WLWT-TV, WCPO-TV, WKRC-TV, and numerous free-lance recording projects. He has also taught at Miami University (Ohio) and Northern Kentucky University.

Rick VanMatre
Rick VanMatre is director of Jazz Studies at CCM, conductor of the CCM Jazz Ensemble, and producer of the “Jazz at CCM” concert series, one of the most popular and successful programs in the Greater Cincinnati area. As a saxophonist, he has recorded with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, the PsychoAcoustic Orchestra, Latin X-Posure, and performed with such artists as Bobby Shew, Rosemary Clooney, the Duke Ellington Orchestra led by Mercer Ellington, and the Woody Herman Orchestra directed by Frank Tiberi. He has been featured as a concerto soloist with the Illinois Philharmonic and the Middletown Symphony and played such varied venues as the Nancy Jazz Festival (France), the Saxon Gardens Summer Jazz Festival (Poland), the El-Dan Forum Jerusalem 3000 (Israel), Latin/Jazz concerts with Roland Vazquez, and multimedia presentations entitled “Earthkind-Humankind” featuring music, poetry, dance, and art. As a conductor, he has directed big band programs for American Jazz Radio Festival, NPR, and for artists like Slide Hampton, Joe Henderson and Dave Liebman. From 1986 to 1990 he hosted the nationally syndicated radio series “Jazz—Live From The Hyatt.” He has presented performances and lectures for the International Association of Jazz Educators, Music Educators National Conference, the North American Saxophone Alliance, and the World Saxophone Congress, and has written for Saxophone Journal. He is a regular faculty member of the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Clinics and has taught at the International Summer Jazz Academy in Warsaw, Poland. Mr. VanMatre has been named “Best Jazz Musician” by Cincinnati Magazine and the “Ernest N. Glover Outstanding Teacher” by CCM students.

Jazz Ensemble & Jazz Lab Band
The Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Lab Band perform a wide variety of styles including historical swing, bebop, post-bop, fusion, Latin and avant-garde. Special emphasis is placed on the idiom’s great art-music composers such as Thad Jones, Bill Holman, and Bob Brookmeyer, on projects like the annual All-Ellington concert, and on the performance of student arrangements. Concerts have included tributes to Woody Herman and Stan Kenton, as well as composer residency programs featuring artists like Kenny Werner, Maria Schneider, Jim McNeely and Kenny Wheeler as guest composers. The Jazz Ensemble has been invited to appear at numerous professional festivals, educational conferences and radio broadcasts. Many internationally recognized artists have performed as soloists with the big band including Eddie Daniels, John Clayton, Frank Foster, Curtis Fuller, Kenny Garrett, Ahmad Jamal, Joshua Redman, and Jiggs Whigham. Serenade in Blue, the most recent compact disc recording by the CCM Jazz Ensemble on Sea Breeze Records continues to receive wide recognition and enthusiastic reviews. Cadence Magazine called it “a necessary part of any big-band enthusiast’s library,” Jazz Education Journal named it as one of the “Top Campus CDs of the Year,” and Jazz Journal (England) said it featured “an array of remarkably mature soloists who would hold their own in any professional organization.”

CCM’s Jazz Series is sponsored by the Castellini Foundation.

For more information, please visit
the CCM Web site: www.ccm.uc.edu.