This event will live stream on Facebook.

Zoom is exclusive to the CoPA community. 

Join us for our CoPA Artist Happy Hour featuring members of the College of Performing Arts Music community. 

Jimmy Owens

JIMMY OWENS 2012 NEA Jazz Master 2012 A. B. Spellman Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy

Legendary Jazz artist JIMMY OWENS (trumpet, flugelhorn) has over forty-five years of experience as a Jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, lecturer, and music education consultant. His experience covers a wide range of international musical achievements, which includes extensive work as a studio musician, soloist, bandleader, and composer of orchestral compositions, movie scores, and ballets.

Jimmy is one of the few trumpeters of his generation who played as a sideman with such extraordinary Jazz leaders as Lionel Hampton, Hank Crawford, Charles Mingus, Max Roach, Duke Ellington, Billy Taylor, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Band, among others. As a result, his musical and personal recollections are unique. He can share personal recollections of being a sideman in some of the most exciting bands in the history of Jazz music. His anecdotes are priceless: playing with Cootie Williams, Sweets Edison, Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie in a historic concert at Yale where Eubie Blake and Paul Robeson were in the audience; sitting in with Miles Davis at the age of fifteen, and many others.

Throughout his long career, Jimmy has consistently emphasized in both his performances and recordings a deep understanding of the blues as well as beautiful and articulate emotional projection on ballads. As a reviewer stated in All About Jazz regarding Jimmy’s performance on One More: The Summary – Music of Thad Jones, Vol 2 (2006), an all-star recording on which Jimmy appeared – “Jimmy Owens … proves that he’s better than ever, whether employing a breathy, vocal quality (Little Pixie), a smooth flugelhorn sound (Three in One), or brilliant and elliptical Jones-like melodic ideas (Rejoice).”

Michael Howell 

Guitarist / Teacher / Recording Artist

Michael Howell began playing guitar in Kansas City Mo., a city where great jazz and blues was a way of life. He studied classical guitar at the Music and Arts Institute of San Francisco and later received a degree in Music from Lehman College in New York.

Michael has performed and recorded with musicians such as Bobby Hutcherson, Art Blakey, George Duke, Gene Ammons, Woody Shaw, Paquito D'Rivera, and violinist Michael White. He performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival Guitar Summit with Joe Pass and Jim Hall. Michael also worked five years with the great bebop innovator, John "Dizzy" Gillespie.

Michael taught at the JazzMobile Workshop for over 20 years. He currently works with his own group, freelances, and teaches at the JazzMobile Workshop. He also works with the Jimmy Owens Group. They have toured Central America and a music festival in Asunción, Paraguay. Michael was also a member of the house band at the newly open Minton's night club. 

Michael recorded three solo albums: "Alone" on Catalyst Records, "Looking Glass", & "In The Silence" on Milestone Records. He recently recorded a CD to be released this year, "Live at El Taller".