The story of NIU Jazz begins in 1969 with the arrival on campus of a music teacher named Ron Modell. Tasked with creating a jazz program from scratch, Modell auditioned 60 hopeful musicians for 20 available chairs in the new ensemble. Just six weeks later, the NIU Jazz Ensemble played its first concert.
Modell was an accomplished trumpeter who had played with all the greats – Louis Armstrong, Maynard Ferguson, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Bellson and many more. His talent, outgoing personality and strong connections in the music world introduced his students to dozens of jazz stars and travel opportunities beyond their wildest imaginations.
By 1983, Downbeat magazine had named the NIU Jazz Ensemble the top college jazz band in the country. The following year, WTTW public television in Chicago produced a documentary titled A Year in the Life of the Greatest College Jazz Band in America. Among the many great performances captured in that film was a friendly drum battle (excerpted below) between NIU student Vern Spevak and the acknowledged king of percussion, Louis Bellson.
In the summer of 1996, jazz great Quincy Jones asked the NIU Jazz Ensemble to be the band for a tribute to his 50-year career at the world-renowned Montreaux (Switzerland) Jazz Festival.
Modell quickly agreed, seeing the concert as an opportunity for his students to “audition” for many jazz greats, who would in turn spread the word about NIU’s outstanding jazz program.
After their triumph at the four-hour Quincy tribute, the exhausted but exhilarated students were asked to play on an outdoor stage the next day for people who had not been able to buy tickets. They played for two hours – and were called back for three encores.
Pop star Phil Collins played at Montreux that year, and took special note of the NIU Jazz Ensemble. Two years later, he invited them to play for his world-wide summer Big Band tour. Modell came out of retirement to recruit a group of Jazz Ensemble alumni who played with Collins all over the world, including at the Taste of Chicago in Grant Park.
“This band is absolutely fabulous,” Collins told Chicago Tribune music critic Howard Reich. They’re so hungry and so ready. I’m the one who’s actually slowing them down!”
The hard-to-impress Reich agreed. “Collins has an extra weapon in his arsenal: the musicians from Northern Illinois University.”
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