Steve Wiest

Steve Wiest "(né" John Stephen Wiest; born 1957) 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 "(see 2013–2014 project, below)."
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 (1985–1986), served as an arranging TA for Paris Rutherford (1986–1987), and directed the Three O'Clock Lab Band (1987–1988). 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 (composer and trombonist), Stockton Helbing (drums, producer), Braylon Lacy (bass), Ryan Davidson (guitar), Noel Johnston (guitar), and Daniel Pardo (flute). Guest artist are Bob Mintzer (tenor sax), Arlington Jones "(né" Arlington Julius Jones II) (piano), and James Pankow (trombone).
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.
Awards and recognition.
Academic
Professional
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 (1932–2006) was a trombonist and his mother, Wanda Jean Smith Stegall (1934-2016) 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
As director of the One O'Clock Lab Band
As director of the U-Tubes
As director of The Jazz Symposium, UW-Whitewater
As trombonist and arranger with Maynard Ferguson
As trombonist with the Frank Mantooth Jazz Orchestra
As trombonist with other artists
As student trombonist and arranger with the One O'Clock Lab Band
As composer and trombonist with other artists
Selected compositions and arrangements.
Kendor Music, Inc., distributor
UNC Jazz Press, Greeley, Colorado
Walrus Music Publishing – trade name for Daniel Franz Beher, Pismo Beach, California (audio samples)
Maynard Ferguson Publishing and library
Other publishers
Unpublished
Jazz festivals, concerts, master classes, and workshops.
In addition to Wiest's concert appearances at music festivals, clinics, and camps as director of the One O'Clock Lab Band, he has appeared as an artist and clinician with organizations and events that include:
Collegiate
Scholastic
Regional, national, professional
As director of The Jazz Symposium, UW-Whitewater
As director of the One O'Clock Lab Band
Selected videography and podcasts.
Maynard Ferguson
One O'Clock Lab Band
Other works.
Cartoons and illustrations
Articles
Liner notes
Digital media jazz advocacy