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Bill Dobbins

Bill Dobbins teaches courses in jazz composing and arranging, gives applied lessons to jazz writing majors, and directs the Eastman Jazz Ensemble and the Eastman Studio Orchestra. As a pianist he has performed with classical orchestras and chamber ensembles under the direction of Pierre Boulez, Lukas Foss, and Louis Lane, and has performed and recorded with such jazz artists as Clark Terry, Al Cohn, Red Mitchell, Phil Woods, Bill Goodwin, Dave Liebman, Kevin Mahogany, Paquito D’Rivera, Peter Erskine, and John Goldsby. He was a prizewinner in the 1972 International Gaudeamus Competition for interpreters of contemporary music, and has been the recipient of several jazz composition grants from the Ohio Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. He joined the Eastman faculty in 1973, and was instrumental in designing both the graduate and undergraduate curricula for Eastman’s jazz studies program. Many of his students have been heard in the big bands of Count Basie, Woody Herman, Buddy Rich, Maynard Ferguson, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis, Chuck Mangione, and Maria Schneider, have become successful in the Los Angeles television and film music industry, and are on the faculties of jazz programs in many of the world’s leading music schools.

From 1994 through 2002, Dobbins was principal director of the WDR Big Band in Cologne, Germany. Concert, radio, television, and tour projects under his direction included internationally acclaimed soloists such as Clark Terry, Dave Liebman, Randy Brecker, Gary Bartz, Kevin Mahogany, Art Farmer, Steve Lacy, Paquito D’Rivera, Mark Feldman, Clare Fischer, Peter Erskine, the Kings Singers, and Katia and Marielle Labeque. In 2002 he returned to the Eastman faculty, while continuing work as guest director with the WDR Big Band as well as with the Netherlands Metropole Orchestra in Hilversum. Advance Music publishes Dobbins’ compositions and arrangements for big band, chamber music combinations, and solo piano. Jazz education programs worldwide have adopted his volumes of transcriptions of classic jazz piano solos and jazz textbooks for use in their courses.

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Album Review

Bill Dobbins/John Goldsby/Peter Erskine: Cologne

Read "Cologne" reviewed by John Kelman


First impressions can sometimes be deceiving and should sometimes be ignored; otherwise one stands the risk of missing out on something greater. The first couple of tracks on Cologne clearly have their roots in the work of Bill Evans, specifically his trio with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. Bassist John Goldsby's playing stands out with the same kind of high-end lyricism as LaFaro, and demonstrates a similarly playful intuitiveness. Peter Erskine, one of the few drummers on the ...

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Education

Music Education Monday: Developing a theme into a big band arrangement

Music Education Monday: Developing a theme into a big band arrangement

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman

This week's Music Education Monday is a sort of case study in big band arranging, presented by pianist Bill Dobbins, professor of jazz studies and contemporary media at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. A veteran jazz educator, Dobbins first joined the Eastman faculty in 1973, and played a major role in designing the school's jazz studies program. He currently teaches jazz composing and arranging, gives applied lessons to jazz writing majors, and directs the Eastman Jazz Ensemble ...

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Cologne

Fuzzy Music
2005

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Textures

Birdology
1973

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Videos

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