the Jack Schantz Jazz Unit
featuring Barbara Rosene
This is the Jack Schantz Jazz Unit — featuring Barbara Rosene.
Reimagining the music of Jerome Kern, Richard Rogers, Harold Arlen, and Johnny Mercer, from the Great American Songbook. With brand new arrangements by Jack Schantz and featuring some of NE Ohio’s finest jazz musicians. Engaging and informative, the latest addition of the Jack Schantz unit is a must-see experience.
Meet the band:
Jack Schantz
Jack was artistic director of the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra from 1994 to 2009. From 1999 to 2020 he served as Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Akron. In the 1980’s Jack performed national and international tours as jazz trumpet soloist with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, the Artie Shaw Orchestra, and the Woody Herman Thundering Herd.
After coming off the road he worked as a free-lance musician, playing in the pit orchestras for many shows at Playhouse Square, including Miss Saigon, Showboat, City of Angles, Man of LaMancha, Annie Get Your Gun, Guys and Dolls, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Anything Goes, The Sound of Music, The Color Purple, The Drowsy Chaperone, Hair, and Porgy and Bess. He also has performed in concerts with artists such as Mel Torme, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, Cleo Laine, Jack Jones, Nancy Wilson and Diane Schuur. He has been a member of the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, the Blossom Festival Orchestra, and the Blossom Festival Band. He led the Jack Schantz Jazz Unit in the ‘90s, and recorded the CD Choices with that group. He has also recorded with Oscar Peterson (The Christmas Album), and the Grammy Award winning Turned To Blue with Nancy Wilson. Other recordings include The Way of the Sly Man with Dave Morgan, Come Right In with Phil Woods, Speechless and I Love To Tell The Story with his own quartet.
While serving as artistic director of the CJO, he worked with arranger/composers Billy Byers, Bob Brookmeyer, Bill Finegan. Bill Holman, Slide Hampton, Gerald Wilson, Sammy Nestico, Bob Florence, Frank Foster, Maria Schnieder, and Rob McConnell. CJO recordings under his leadership are Traditions, Swingin ’Together with Sammy Nestico, and The Surprise of Being with Joe Lovano (recorded live at Birdland in NYC). In 2015 he gave concerts and masterclasses in Casablanca, Fez, Rabat, and Khouribga Morocco under the auspices of the U.S. State Department. In November of 2015 he was invited to be one of the featured perfomer/lecturers at the Trumpets of The World festival in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Barbara Rosene
Ohio born and New York based Barbara Rosene, has built an unequalled reputation for interpreting classic compositions, from all eras of Jazz, performing the music with not only a full understanding and love of the original time period but with the rare ability to make the material sound fresh and emotionally relevant today.
Barbara has toured with The Harry James Orchestra for the past 15 years, and has performed with The Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw Orchestras, as well as directing her own New Yorkers, playing such venues as: Lincoln Center's Rose Hall, Birdland, The Iridium, Dizzy’s, Mezzrow, Blues Alley, and The Montreal Jazz Festival.
Featured on NPR programs "Jazz Inspired", with Judy Carmichael, and "Hot Jazz Saturday Night." with Rob Bamberger, she is the recipient of a Backstage -Bistro Award, and is included in Scott Yanow’s book, “Great Jazz Singers.”
Barbara's studio albums include “Deep Night”, with Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks, “On The Brink”, with Wyclife Gordon, Howard Alden and Randy Sandke, and a Grammy nominated collection of -1920s/30s tunes - “Nice and Naughty” with her own New Yorkers.
John Orsini
Saxophonist John Orsini resides in Cleveland Ohio and is an active player on the local jazz scene. From 1982 until 2013 John was a staff musician at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. While in Orlando, John was a member and co-founder of the Orlando Jazz Orchestra.
Over the years he has performed with a number of Jazz greats, a few of whom include Al Cohn, Clark Terry, Red Rodney, Jake Hanna and Zoot Sims.
John has toured with The Glenn Miller Orchestra, The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and with Natalie Cole. He has also made appearances with the Smithsonian Jazz Orchestra.
Brad Wagner
Brad is a Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Baritone Saxophonist, Clarinetist, who also plays bass clarinet, flute, piccolo, and alto flute. He also spends a great deal of time as a composer, and arranger. Brad was born in Akron, Ohio, and completed his B.M. in Jazz Studies from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. He has studied with Rick VanMatre, Brad Goode, Phil DeGreg, John Von Ohlen, Marc Fields, and others. Brad Wagner has been a member of many jazz groups including: Pulse, Ernie Krivda and the Fat Tuesday Big Band, The Hendectet Jazz Collective, The Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, The Cincinnati Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, Moustache Yourself, Sam Blakeslee's Large Group, The Black Dog Octet, Red Rhinoceros, The Signal Ensemble, The ABC Trio, The Brad Wagner Nonet, and more.
George Shernit
Baritone saxophonist George Shernit has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. He also has worked numerous Broadway shows and is featured on records by the CJO, the Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Symphonic Winds. Shernit earned a bachelor of arts degree in music theory and composition, as well as a master’s degree in performance, from Cleveland State University. Shernit has taught at Cleveland State, Case Western Reserve University, Ashland University, University of Akron, and Muskegon University. A charter member of the CJO, he also is the band’s personnel manager. He is a district sales manager with Jupiter Band Instruments.
Paul Ferguson
Paul Ferguson has been director of Jazz Studies at Case Western Reserve University since 1988. A graduate of the University of Akron and the Eastman School of Music, Paul has travelled with the Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller bands as lead trombonist and arranger and currently fills those functions with the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra.
Paul was principal trombonist of the Canton Symphony from 1989-98 and at various times has also performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Opera, the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, Apollos’s Fire, the Cleveland Chamber Brass, the New Hampshire Festival Orchestra and various groups across Northeast Ohio.
In 1995, Paul was the recipient of the Gil Evans Fellowship in Jazz Composition.He has two recordings–”Blue Highways”, recorded with the RIAS Big Band of Berlin, and “Friends”, recorded with his own orchestra.
Last summer, Paul taught at an International Jazz Seminar in Zarautz, Spain, wrote three arrangements for the Glenn Miller Orchestra and wrote three arrangements for the Cleveland Pops for use on the Drew Carey show.
Rock Wehrmann
Jazz pianist, Rock Wehrmann, is in-demand across the Midwest as a performer, producer, musical director and accompanist. A first-call musician for Playhouse Square, the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra and the Cleveland Pops, Rock has established himself as both a well-respected and talented performer and educator. He serves on the jazz studies faculty at the University of Akron and Cleveland State University, and has previously served as Advertising Manager and Marketing Manager for Moog Music Inc., and Advertising Manager at Audio-Technica U.S., Inc.
Aiden Plank
Aidan Plank is a bassist living in Northern Ohio. He currently serves as bassist for the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, Cleveland Jazzworks, and Dan Bruce’s Beta Collective. Aidan’s own ensemble, Pulse, explores original compositions by its members as well as a diverse range of music composed by well-known and obscure jazz composers
As an educator Aidan serves as the jazz bass instructor at Kent State University and at Cuyahoga Community College’s Jazzfest Academy. Aidan has also served as a clinician and adjudicator at the Maplerock Jazz Festival (2016) at Ashland University and at the Lakeland Jazz Festival (2018) at Lakeland Community College.
Performance highlights include performances with: Dan Wall, Joe Lovano, David Berkman, Tim Armacost, Tierney Sutton, Vanessa Rubin, Gerald Clayton, John Fedchock, Bill Dobbins, Bruce Johnstone, Joe Maneri, Steve Davis, Jamey Haddad, Michael Philip Mossman, Carl Allen, Randall Woolf, Terence Blanchard, The Cleveland Orchestra, Judi Silvano, Bruce Arnold, and others.
Aidan was featured on NPR’s “Jazz Night in America” radio show on their May 16, 2019 broadcast: “Cleveland’s Joe Lovano Comes Home”.
Aidan has performed at Carnegie Hall, Severance Hall, The Knitting Factory (NYC), Spectrum (NYC), Elastic Arts (Chicago), and Blossom Music Center. Aidan is a graduate of Cleveland State University.
Jim Rupp
Jim Rupp is currently the drummer in the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra and the Cleveland Pops Orchestra. He has toured extensively with the bands of Woody Herman (where he played on three recordings, one of which was nominated for a Grammy), Maynard Ferguson, and the Glenn Miller Orchestra. He also spent eight years with Grammy-winning jazz singer Diane Schuur, and has toured and performed with Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, Joe Lovano, Henry Mancini, Vince Mendoza, John Fedchock, John Faddis, Byron Stripling, Maria Schneider, Clary Terry, Joe Williams, Cab Calloway, Rosemary Clooney, Natalie Cole, Hank Marr, Rusty Bryant, the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, and the Smithsonian Masterworks Jazz Orchestra. Jim has also played, as a Pops drum set player, in orchestras around the country including the orchestras of Boston, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Columbus, St. Louis, Dayton and Cincinnati.
These touring credits, plus his educational background, have prepared him well for clinics and performances at colleges and high schools around the country. He has given workshops at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, the International Association of Jazz Educators Conference, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Jazz Educators National Conference, OMEA, and numerous colleges and high schools around the country. In this capacity he is a clinician for Noble and Cooley drums, Zildjian cymbals, Pro Mark drumsticks, and Remo drumheads.
As an educator, Rupp has taught at Indiana University and the University of Michigan, as well as his current appointment at The Ohio State University. In 2021, he was given the outstanding alumni award from the School of Music at Ohio State. He is also the co-author of an acclaimed drum set method book, “Baby Steps to Giant Steps.” Rupp is a past chair of the drum set committee for the Percussive Arts Society, a past board member of NAMM (the International Music Products Association), and the president of Columbus Pro Percussion Inc., one of largest and most respected percussion specialty shops in the country.