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Stockton Helbing

Stockton Helbing is always moving. If he is not playing the drums he is busy being a composer, arranger, producer, bandleader, educator, music director, author, and entrepreneur.

Stockton maintains a busy schedule of performing, recording, and teaching around North America with his trio, quartet, quintet, and sextet. He is a frequent guest artist at colleges and high schools where he clinics, rehearses and performs with their small groups, big bands, and percussion ensembles. Since 2011, Stockton has been heard across the United States playing drums for American music icon and trumpet player extraordinaire Doc Severinsen.

Stockton has released seven albums to date: Lodestar (2005), For Nothing is Secret (2007), Battlestations & Escape Plans (2010), Crazy Aquarius (2012), Handprints (2014), Patina (2015), and Swimming in Place (2017), his most recent. Each album showcases not only Stockton’s drumming abilities, but his composing, arranging, and producing skills as well. Stockton has also authored two books, Big Band Drum Set Sight Reading Etudes Volume 1 and Studies in Syncopation, both of which are included in the percussion curriculum at the University of North Texas.

Since 2016, Stockton has directed a Jazz masterclass and small group program called the Helbing Jazz Initiative (HJI). Through a close partnership with the music company Williamson Music 1st, Stockton and his sextet have provided Jazz masterclasses for thousands of elementary, middle school, and high school students throughout the Dallas/Ft. Worth Area. HJI masterclasses focus on celebrating the Jazz masters of the past through performance and discussion of their musical and social contributions to Jazz history. In April of 2019, Stockton was recognized by the Dallas Jazz Appreciation Month (DJAM) Jazz Legend award for Jazz Innovator of the year for his work with HJI in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Stockton has performed and recorded with a wide range of artists including Maynard Ferguson, Doc Severinsen, Arturo Sandoval, the Maniacal 4, Erykah Badu, David Braid, Steve Wiest, Jennifer Holiday, Blue Lou Marini, The Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Denis DiBlasio, The Cincinnati Pops, Chip McNeill, Darden Purcell, Clay Jenkins, Phil Woods, Wayne Bergeron, Randy Brecker, The Imperial Brass, Mary Wilson, Paul Tynan, Andy Timmons, Tom “Bones” Malone, Ernie Watts and many more.

Stockton currently teaches drum set at the University of North Texas as an adjunct professor of music. Stockton has appeared as a guest artist at schools including the University of North Texas, San Jose State University, Southern Wesleyan University, the University of Illinois, Simpson College, George Mason University, the University of South Carolina, St.

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Take Five With...

Take Five With Stockton Helbing

Read "Take Five With Stockton Helbing" reviewed by Stockton Helbing


Meet Stockton Helbing: I starting playing drums in the sixth grade, while growing up in South Carolina. After high school, I attended the University of North Texas where I played in the well known One O'clock Lab band under the direction of Neil Slater. That opportunity helped open the door to being hired by jazz trumpet legend Maynard Ferguson. I spent four year touring the world with Ferguson, as well as serving as Musical Director. ...

294
Album Review

Stockton Helbing: For Nothing Is Secret

Read "For Nothing Is Secret" reviewed by Martin Gladu


Stockton Helbing's stock is rising. In his second solo effort, For Nothing Is Secret, the Texas-based drummer has not only a recording with pizzazz, but the making of an exciting and crowd-pleasing festival touring unit. As the album's title suggests, his music should not remain secret for long. Trumpeter Maynard Ferguson recognized Helbing's talent early on and called upon him to anchor his ensemble as well as produce his last studio date, just before suddenly passing in August ...

311
Album Review

Stockton Helbing: For Nothing Is Secret

Read "For Nothing Is Secret" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Stockton Helbing has had quite an education. After graduating from the University of North Texas, where he studied with Ed Soph and was a member of the school's renowned One O'Clock Lab Band, the young drummer completed almost four years of “post-graduate work with trumpeter Maynard Ferguson's dynamic tentet, Big Bop Nouveau, for which he also served as music director.

When Maynard died on August 23, 2006, only six days before Helbing's twenty-sixth birthday, the jazz world mourned his loss ...

241
Album Review

Stockton Helbing: Lodestar

Read "Lodestar" reviewed by Michael P. Gladstone


Drummer Stockton Helbing is a South Carolina native who has spent over two years as the percussionist for Maynard Ferguson and has also worked with Joe Lovano, Arturo Sandoval, and Diane Schuur.

The quintet that Helbing has assembled for this debut recording consists of musicians who all attended the jazz school at the University of North Texas. The two-horn front line of Ken Edwards on trumpet and flugelhorn and Tom Luer on tenor saxophone is supported by a ...

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Recording

Drummer Stockton Helbing releases ambitious, visionary new album

Drummer Stockton Helbing releases ambitious, visionary new album

Source: Lauren Rogers

If drummer Stockton Helbing's new album Battlestations & Escape Plans was a film, it'd be a widescreen epic. In a sense, it already is. This ambitious, visionary work lights up the imagination with the blinding force of an atomic bomb. That is not hyperbole; every track on the record pulses with dazzling arrangements, thumping energy, and breathtaking cinematic atmospherics. What Helbing has produced here is a movie for the mind, one that unreels scenes of high adventure and poignant drama ...

[Helbing] lays a solid foundation, spiced with tasty fills.

- Modern Drummer

When the grade is entered, it‘s no Secret that Helbing has passed this latest test with room to spare and continues to show promise as a drummer and leader.

- All About Jazz

He’s still more about taste and dynamics than flash and razzle dazzle.

- Jazziz Magazine

This young man promises to make a mark in the drummer’s world. He has found a way to express his own voice and has made the achievement to be one of the best drummers that visionary “Boss” Maynard Ferguson has ever hired.

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Primary Instrument

Drums

Location

Dallas

Willing to teach

Advanced only

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

NSTX

Armored Records
2021

buy

Battlestations &...

Armored Records
2011

buy

For Nothing Is Secret

Armored Records
2007

buy

Lodestar

Self Produced
2005

buy

Keslier

From: Battlestations & Escape Plans
By Stockton Helbing

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