On April 30, D’Addario hosted an event at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University in celebration of the famed International Jazz Day. D’Addario artists Jeff Coffin and Roy “Futureman” Wooten were guest hosts representing D’Addario Woodwinds and Evans Drum Heads.
This event was a planned celebration as part of D’Addario LIVE, a larger D’Addario initiative created to increase support of music education by engaging students and providing inspiring musical experiences in an interactive environment that is both entertaining and educational. The event brought in 200 participants from the surrounding Nashville area, including students from the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt.
“We assembled this event for International Jazz Day and invited Jeff Coffin and Roy Wooten to participate in our celebration,” Jim Bailey says, Educator Relations Manager for D’Addario. “Students were not only able to learn from these two great musicians, but at the conclusion of the event we hosted an open jam for students to play with some of today’s greatest jazz musicians.”
This particular D-LIVE session consisted of two components:
- Break-Out Sessions: A drum clinic was hosted by Roy Wooten along with a saxophone clinic provided by Jeff Coffin, both focused around the jazz theme. Roy discussed the importance of expression in music while Jeff took a closer look at historic saxophone icons and discussed their approach to music and soloing.
- Full Band Master Class: Jeff and Roy spent 90 minutes playing, demonstrating, and performing to create an enlightening event which allowed audience members to ask questions and participate in a way that would not have been possible through standard concerts. The evening also featured a guest performance from Vanderbilt’s top jazz combo, and concluded with an open jazz jam session where many of the audience members took advantage of the opportunity to play shoulder-to- shoulder with Jeff and Roy themselves.
Jeff Coffin, a D’Addario Woodwinds player since 2011, is an internationally recognized saxophonist, bandleader, composer and educator who has been traveling the globe since the late 20th Century. A three- time Grammy Award winner during his tenure with Bela Fleck & the Flecktones from 1997-2010, Jeff followed this time in his career by touring with Dave Matthews Band, and officially joined the group in 2009 after the tragic passing of founding member LeRoi Moore. When not on the road with Dave Matthews, Coffin fronts his own group, Jeff Coffin & the Mu’tet, and in 2015, he established the Nashville Jazz Composers Collective. As a heavily in-demand D’Addario and Yamaha Clinician, Coffin has presented hundreds of music clinics to students around the world including the US, South Africa, Australia, South America, Europe, Canada and Mexico to rave reviews. Education continues to be an important part of what Jeff shares with others, and he is a tireless champion to players of all ages and levels to discover and cultivate their own musical voice.
“D’Addario’s commitment to education is an essential part of the success I have in doing what I do,” Jeff Coffin explained. “Their vision and dedication help provide the ‘long tail’ for these students – meaning, they will hold onto this knowledge and experience for a long time. I feel these presentations will be an integral part of music education and I am thrilled to be part of this movement! Thank you, D’Addario!”
Roy Wooten is a modern-day Renaissance Man: a groundbreaking drummer, a pioneering inventor, a skilled musician, a talented composer, and a five-time Grammy Award-winning musician known as “Futureman”. His rhythmic, melodic, harmonic and symphonic explorations led him to compose a new kind of music and a series of large musical works, and he continues to push the boundaries of musical capability with performance techniques and musical compositions that feature new ways of drumming, recording, playing, composing and conducting. An Evans player since 2014, Roy has grown up playing the drums for most of his life, and he loves to see this instrument make progress.
D’Addario LIVE events will continue throughout the year, with upcoming shows scheduled for the following cities in 2016:
LA
Boston
Chicago
London
New York
Shanghi
San Francisco
Looking Back on 2025: A Year of Controlled Chaos (Emphasis on “Controlled”)