The UVM Jazz Ensemble will maintain its tradition of performing with some of the world’s greatest contemporary jazz musicians when it opens for Robin Eubanks, voted the top trombonists in jazz by Downbeat magazine, and his ensemble, EB3, at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 9, at FlynnSpace. 

Eubanks will rehearse the Jazz Ensemble in two sessions that are free and open to the public on Thursday, April 7, from 4 to 5:15 p.m. and Friday, April 8, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the Southwick Ballroom. Members of EB3 will participate in the Friday rehearsal. 

The UVM ensemble will perform arrangements Eubanks wrote for the Charles Mingus Big Band and the Dave Holland Big Band, of which he is a member.  It will also play an original Eubanks composition that honors Jimi Hendrix and an arrangement of Hendrix’s version of the standard “Lover Man.”

Alex Stewart, associate professor of music and director of UVM’s Jazz Studies program, will co-conduct the Jazz Ensemble. 

Eubanks, whom All About Jazz calls the “greatest trombonist of his generation,” has performed with artists ranging from Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, Eddie Palmieri and Sun Ra to Barbra Streisand, The Rolling Stones and Talking Heads. He has won Grammys for his performances on Michael Brecker's “Wide Angles” and Dave Holland's “What Goes Around.” A tenured professor of trombone at the Oberlin College Conservatory and an accomplished composer, Eubanks has won a compositional grant from Chamber Music America and an ASCAP Composer's grant. 

EB3 features Eubanks backed by a talented and entertaining duo on drums and bass that simultaneously play keyboards with their free hands. The group’s innovative and deceptively effortless approach delivers exciting and energetic group play that often sounds like a much bigger ensemble.

Tickets are available through Flynn Theaters's website  or by calling 802-86-FLYNN.  Students with a UVM ID can purchase tickets for $15.  

Since it was created in 2001, UVM's Jazz Studies program has brought a variety of well known guest artists to UVM, in partnership with the Flynn Theater, including Wynton Marsalis, Maria Schneider, Paquito D'Rivera, Steve Swallow, Carla Bley and Mike Holber, to work and perform with students.