The Professors of Jazz

One of the most elite performing and educating jazz faculty in the United States, The Professors of Jazz at Michigan State University’s College of Music was established in 2000. This supercharged group of individuals with dynamic talents and skills in composition, arranging, composing, performance, and production work nationally and internationally. They exhibit unprecedented levels of commitment, collaboration, and innovation, yielding astounding performances and recordings. Artistic director Rodney Whitaker is director of Jazz Studies at MSU. Since its inception, the group has completed residencies at Detroit Symphony Hall, Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center, Wharton Center for the Performing Arts, the Arts League of Michigan Jazz at the Center, and Michigan State University Federal Credit Union Jazz Artist in Residence Series. Through these residencies and series, the group has performed in concert with notable international jazz artists, including Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride, Ron Carter, Jimmy Cobb, Jon Faddis, Harvey Mason, Peter Bernstein, Kenny Barron, Cyrus Chestnut, Mark Whitfield, Marcus Belgrave, Vanessa Rubin, Nneena Freelon, Rufus Reid, Timothy Warfield, Walter White, Brian Lynch, Carl Allen, Buster Williams, Conrad Herwig, Anat Cohen, Steve Wilson, Melissa Aldana, Russell Malone, Jon Carl Hendricks, Wycliffe Gordon, Joe Temperley, Michael Phillip Mossman, Helen Sung, Robin Eubanks, Andre Hayward, Eric Reed, Wessell “Warmdaddy” Anderson, Ali Jackson, Maya Orr, Donald Walden, Marcus Printup, Gerald Wilson Big Band, Ingrid Jensen, and many others.

In their hometown, the Greater Lansing Area of Michigan, the group has been voted as Top of the Town winners for Best Jazz Musicians. “MSU Professors of Jazz. Do we deserve them? Probably not, sinners that we are, yet they are still among us, each of them a star in his own right, teaching, building community, changing hundreds of young lives and swinging like a baby elephant trunk.”—Lansing’s Top of the Town

Group Members

The “hard-bop” Professors of Jazz feature Xavier Davis (piano), Michael Dease (trombone), Randy Gelispie (drums), Randy Napoleon (guitar), Walter Blanding (tenor saxophone), Anthony Stanco (trumpet), Carmen Bradford (voice), and Rodney Whitaker (bass). The band performs music from the jazz canhttps://music.phiredevelopment.com/faculty/xavier-davis/on, including standards, jazz classics, and original compositions.