Name: NIU Jazz Ensemble
Start: 2026-03-31T20:00:00
Location: Dearborn Station

Jazz Showcase

Bob Lark is recognized regionally, nationally and internationally as a contemporary jazz educator and performer of integrity.  His approach to pedagogy and rehearsal techniques has been noted by participation in professional conferences; publication of articles; compact disc recordings as both a performer and ensemble director; and the direction of numerous student honors ensembles.  Down Beat magazine recognized Bob’s work in 2010 with their Jazz Education Achievement Award.

Bob Lark

Dearborn Station

A bold performer, soulful composer and passionate educator, Trumpeter Marques Carrol is dedicated to preserving the authentic culture of Jazz and spreading his holistic love of music around the world.

Marques Carroll Quintet

At the start of the Great Recession in September 2008, Petra's Recession Seven, an authentic Chicago-style jazz band was born at Chicago's legendary Green Mill. The seven piece ensemble is led by Petra van Nuis, a vocalist praised by the Chicago Tribune for her "interpretive savvy...light-and-silvery vocals and, better still, saucy manner of delivery that emphasizes the art of the double entendre."

Petra's Recession Seven

Bassist, Composer and Educator, Clark has toured and performed extensively throughout the world. He has had the privilege of performing with Cedar Walton, Darrell Grant, Brian Blade, Ernie Watts, Bennie Maupin, Von Freeman, Ira Sullivan, Frank Wess, Charles McPherson, Peter Bernstein, Lin Haliday, Dana Hall, Jodie Christian, Bobby Broom, Jeff Parker, Ron Perrillo, Geof Bradfield, Michael Weiss, George Fludas, Kevin Mahogany, Eden Atwood, Ted Sirota’s Rebel Souls, The Chicago Jazz Orchestra among others.

Clark Sommers

One of the world’s preeminent jazz innovators, trombonist and seashellist Steve Turre, has consistently won both the Readers’ and Critics’ polls in JazzTimes, Downbeat, and Jazziz for Best Trombone and for Best Miscellaneous Instrumentalist (shells). Turre was born to Mexican-American parents and grew up in the San Francisco Bay area where he absorbed daily doses of mariachi, blues and jazz. While attending Sacramento State University, he joined the Escovedo Brothers salsa band, which began his career-long involvement with that genre.

Steve Turre Quintet

Roosevelt University CCPA

The NIU Jazz Ensemble is the Laboratory Jazz Big Band at NIU. This group performs advanced and intermediate material covering a wide variety of jazz styles, including new works composed and/or arranged by NIU faculty and students.

NIU Jazz Ensemble

A Chicago native, Isabella is an actor, vocalist, pianist, music director, and conductor who has had the great honor of sharing her artistry on stage and screen both at home and internationally.

Isabella Isherwood Quartet

In describing the Black music tradition, Pharoah Sanders once remarked to Bernice Johnson Reagon “to me, it’s all spiritual music.” The musical journey from blues to gospel and “jazz” and back is more natural than these categorical separations can ever be. Like the great practitioners of the blues and gospel, Joel Ross is interested in the story, in the way that it can reveal the divine promise that life need not forever be what it has been. His chosen medium is a sextet. His message is love others and sacrifice the self. Service to others is the best way to live love and to be Christlike. Gospel Music is service music. Service is what we call worship. “Playing an instrument is a form of worship, and I’ve been worshipping all my life,” said Dizzy Gillepsie. And like Diz, Ross is committed to worship, represented in and through his music.

Joel Ross

Dan Kaufman has emerged as a leading and promising young voice in Jazz Piano. Dan’s playing is adventurous and dynamic while firmly rooted in the jazz tradition. As a versatile and sensitive sideman , he has performed for audiences around the world, with many of the most prominent figures in jazz. From Jimmy Heath, Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride and Mark Turner. He is also an accomplished composer and arranger.

Dan Kaufman Trio

Julián Pujols Quall is a Dominican-American pianist and keyboardist, improviser, composer and educator from Chicago who has performed classical and jazz repertoire throughout the continental United States as well as in the Dominican Republic, Spain, Belgium, Puerto Rico and Mexico. A classically trained artist, Peabody Conservatory graduate, and DePaul University National Concerto Competition for Young Performers First Prize Winner, their work has found a home in jazz performance, improvisation and cross-cultural collaboration since developing experimental collaborative programs as a founding member of the Peabody Improvisers Collective. They are a curator for the Discoveries Hear & Be Heard series at Fulcrum Point New Music Project, and a 2025 National Association of Latino Arts and Culture Institute Fellow. Julián has been lead instructor for the Afro-Caribbean Jazz Combo at the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center After School Matters and is currently an accompanist at The Joffrey Ballet’s Grainger Academy. They are the host of “The Changes”, a trilingual interview show presenting local and international musicians on Lumpen Radio. Julián completed a 2024 Banff Center for the Arts Jazz and Sonic Arts composition/performance residency, released the single Rothko; Tlaloc and Totec with Carrier Records in 2023, and most recently had their compositions Chord Prelude and Moriviví premiere at the DiMenna Center for New and Classical Music during the 2024 Yarn/Wire Institute Festival in New York.