Tom Walsh is Robert J. Waller Sr. and Robert J. Waller Jr. Professor of Music, professor of music in saxophone, and chair of the Department of Jazz Studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

An active performer of jazz and classical music, he has presented concerts and workshops in China, Brazil, Japan, Germany, Austria, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Azerbaijan, Costa Rica, and across the United States. Premiere performances include Scott Jones’ concert band arrangement of Russell Peck’s The Upward Stream (2013), Chris Rutkowski’s Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble (2008), and David Baker’s Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra (2004).

Most recently, he is featured on Mike Hackett’s CD New Point of View (Summit Records, 2013) and on two CDs released on the IUMusic label: Holiday Celebration (2011) and Sylvia McNair’s Romance (2012). His latest solo CD release is Intersections (Arizona University Recordings, 2010), featuring Luke Gillespie on piano. Earlier solo CDs include New Life (2002) and Shaking the Pumpkin (1998). Other CD releases include David Baker’s Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra (Paul Freeman Introduces David Baker, Volume XII—Albany Recordings), Basically Baker with the Buselli/Wallarab Jazz Orchestra (GM Recordings), and Sky Scrapings: Saxophone Music of Don Freund (AUR Recordings).

Walsh has performed and presented at conferences of the International Association for Jazz Education, Jazz Education Network, North American Saxophone Alliance, and World Saxophone Congress. At the January 2014 Jazz Education Network Conference in Dallas, he presented “Steps to Better Ballad Playing” and performed with the Mike Hackett Quintet. A Yamaha Performing Artist and Vandoren Artist, he has taught at the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshops since 1991.

Walsh holds degrees in saxophone performance and jazz studies from Indiana University, where his principal teachers were distinguished classical saxophonist Eugene Rousseau and renowned jazz educator David Baker. Other influential teachers in his development were Mike Tracy, Pat LaBarbera, Jerry Coker, and David Liebman.

Jeremy Allen is associate professor of music in jazz studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he has served on faculty since 2006.

A Grammy-nominated bassist, he has performed in the United States and abroad with such jazz luminaries as Fred Hersch, Mike Stern, David Liebman, Kenny Wheeler, Bob Brookmeyer, and George Garzone. DownBeat magazine describes his playing as “worthy of Jaco Pastorius.”

Current projects include the AHA Trio (modern jazz), Corey Christiansen’s Lone Prairie Band (jazz/rock/folk fusion), and Ritmos Unidos (Afro-Caribbean jazz/funk). Allen has been invited to perform at the Indianapolis Jazz Festival, the Ballard (Washington) Jazz Festival, the Shanghai International Jazz Camp, and numerous jazz education conferences. He has presented master classes and papers at colleges, universities, and high schools across the U.S. and in the United Kingdom.

As a recording artist, Allen can be heard on releases by Origin Records, Cadence Records, Patois Records, Artists House Music, and his own label, Watercourse Records.

Bassist and educator Natalie Boeyink was appointed associate professor of music in jazz studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 2023.

After completing her doctorate in music education at the Jacobs School of Music in 2015, Boeyink spent eight years as a jazz lecturer and senior lecturer at the University of North Carolina. She earned an M.M. in Jazz Performance from the University of Louisville and a B.M. in Jazz Studies from the Jacobs School.

Boeyink’s interest in the educational experiences and careers of jazzwomen has launched a series of research projects, conference presentations, and publications, including her dissertation, “An Analysis and Description of Female Jazz Instrumentalists.” An advocate for jazzwomen, she served as chair of the Jazz Education Network’s Women in Jazz Committee and worked to reestablish the Sisters in Jazz Collegiate Combo Competition.

Raised in a musical home in Bloomington, Indiana, Boeyink was surrounded by recordings of the Modern Jazz Quartet and Miles Davis in addition to those of Arlo Guthrie and Johannes Brahms. Violin studies began at age five and were soon followed by piano lessons. In high school, she became enthralled with the rhythms of Latin jazz and bossa nova and knew she wanted to be a jazz bassist.

Batuquê Trio is Boeyink’s seasoned collaboration with drummer Andy Smith and pianist Jamaal Baptiste. Focusing on contemporary Brazilian, Afro-Cuban, and Caribbean jazz, they frequently appears at jazz festivals as performers and clinicians. The trio’s first CD, Transparency, was released in 2015, and a second album is forthcoming in 2023.

Some of Boeyink’s notable performances include appearances with Tammy McCann, Jamie Baum, Ingrid Jensen, Terri Lyne Carrington, Christine Jensen, Leni Stern, Jovino Santos Neto, Joe Piscopo, David “Fathead” Newman, Jon Hendricks, Jeff Coffin, David Liebman, and Lorraine Feather.

Jazz vocalist and educator Rachel Caswell is adjunct lecturer in music in jazz studies: voice at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she teaches courses in jazz history, contemporary jazz, and soul music.

As a performer, Caswell is known for bringing a fresh approach to vocal improvisation and interpretation of popular song. She has performed at colleges, festivals, and a variety of venues nationwide both as a solo artist and as coleader of the Caswell Sisters Jazz Quintet.

She has produced two well-received solo albums—All I Know: Duets with Dave Stryker & Jeremy Allen (2015) and Some Other Time (2003)—and in 2013, released the debut Caswell Sisters album, Alive in the Singing Air, featuring pianist Fred Hersch.

Caswell’s pedagogical experience also includes presentation of jazz-related master classes and clinics at colleges and universities, and serving as a judge and clinician at jazz festivals. 

Drummer Sean Dobbins is associate professor of music in jazz studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

Dobbins got his start as a sought-after Detroit-area jazz sideman at a young age, when he would regularly play with Blue Note artist Louis Smith. Dobbin’s sound can best be described as hard-driving, solid rhythm with refreshing melodic sensibility. Some of his influences include Art Blakey, Jeff Hamilton, Sonny Payne, Ed Thigpen, and Detroit-area greats Gerald Cleaver and Elvin Jones.

Dobbins has received numerous awards and accolades throughout his career, including a Woody Herman Jazz Award, for outstanding musicianship, and a Louis Armstrong Scholarship.

He has performed with many great musicians, including Mose Allison, David Baker, Johnny Basset, Benny Golson, Marion Hayden, Randy Johnston, Frank Morgan, and Lonnie Smith.

Most recently serving as director of jazz studies at Oakland University and jazz program director at Community Music School–Detroit, Dobbins also served on the faculty at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University.

Luke Gillespie is professor of music in jazz studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

An active performer of jazz and classical piano music, Gillespie is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 1994 Indianapolis Jazz Festival Competition, best performance from the Indianapolis Star in 1993, and the 1990 Copland Piano Concerto Competition at Indiana University. He has performed and given master classes in the United States, Japan, China, Indonesia, Austria,Croatia, Germany, Italy and Slovenia.

He has recorded with the Arts Center Jazz Collective, Jeremy Allen, David Baker, Bruce Bransby, Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra, James Campbell, Todd Coolman, Steve Davis (drums), Everett Greene, Pat Harbison, Steve Houghton, Sylvia McNair, Dan Perantoni, John Raymond, Eugene Rousseau, Walter Smith III, Dominic Spera, Wanda Stafford, Dave Stryker, Tierney Sutton, Wayne Wallace and Tom Walsh (with whom he toured Europe in May 2002-03, Japan in May 2004-05, and China in May 2009).

He has performed with Alex Acuna, Jamey Aebersold, Eric Alexander, Rahsaan Barber, Ron Blake, Ralph Bowen, Benny Golson, Wycliffe Gordon, Bunky Green, Jimmy Heath, Nicole Henry, Robert Hurst, Ingrid Jensen, Kelley Johnson, Pat LaBarbera, David Liebman, Marshall McDonald, James Moody, Ed Neumeister, Chris Potter, Rufus Reid, Jeff Rupert, Arturo Sandoval, Jim Snidero, Bennie Wallace, Rodney Whitaker, Pharez Whitted, the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, and Pablo Ziegler.

Gillespie is included in Jazz Play-Along, Vol. 76, "How to Learn Tunes," by David Baker (Aebersold). He has published articles on the aesthetics of jazz and classical music as well as a book, Stylistic II/V7/I Voicings for Keyboardists (Aebersold, 2000, third printing, 2015), endorsed by Danilo Perez, Geoff Keezer, David Liebman, David Baker, and Frank Mantooth. He also adapted Jamey Aebersold's Play-Along Volume 1 for Piano (2015). His solo jazz piano CD, Footprints (2003), was released on RIAX Records (2003), and two trio CDs, Live at the Station (2010) and Third Base Line (2011), were released on Watercourse Records. His latest CD, Moving Mists (2019), was released on Patois Records.

Peter Lerner is "one of Chicago's finest guitarists, a player with great technique and an equal amount of taste, soul and versatility (Chicago Tribune's METROMIX)." He has performed with such jazz luminaries as Ramsey Lewis, Lee Konitz and Willie Pickens among many others, performed at South Shore Jazz Festival, Sarasota Jazz Festival, Downbeat Jazz Museum, featured at the Iridium, the Jazz Showcase, the Green Mill, Andy's Jazz Club, just to name a few. Lerner's 2011 release, "Cry for Peace," featuring a stellar lineup including Eric Alexander, Victor Lewis, Jim Rotondi, David Hazeltine, Jerry Dodgion, Steve Davis among others, hit #25 in the national jazz album chart and has garnered critical acclaim. The recording was made at Van Gelder's Studio, and the album was produced by Grammy Award winner, Don Sickler.

Lerner was born and raised in the multi-cultural, musically diverse Hyde Park area of Chicago. He earned his Bachelor's Degree in Music from Chicago's American Conservatory of Music in 1983, and has been working as a professional musician, composer and recording artist ever since. It's Lerner's multi-faceted talent that makes him in demand: he has recorded numerous television shows and commercials, including the Oprah Winfrey Show. As a versatile guitarist, he performed with Gladys Knight, Funk icon Bootsy Collins, Charlie Wilson of the Gap Band, The Fifth Dimension, Patti LaBella and blues harpist Sugar Blue among others. He is also a faculty member at Columbia College of Chicago, where he has taught jazz guitar and improvisation since 1995, raising the next generation of musicians.

John Raymond is associate professor of music in jazz studies–trumpet at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

Recently voted a Rising Star Trumpeter in DownBeat magazine’s Critics Poll, Raymond has been making a name for himself as one of the most promising up-and-coming jazz musicians in the world. Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, he has performed with some of the most well respected names in jazz, including Billy Hart, Orrin Evans, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Ethan Iverson, Gilad Hekselman, Linda Oh, among others. Raymond has released five albums since 2012, all of which have garnered critical acclaim from The New York Times, DownBeat magazine, JazzTimes, and others.

He has released three of those albums with his band, Real Feels, a flugelhorn/guitar/drums trio that performs both indie-rock and folk-influenced original compositions as well as fresh takes on familiar songs by artists such as Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Thom Yorke, Bon Iver, and others. Their debut album received a four-and-a-half star DownBeat review and was named one of the Best Jazz Albums of 2016 by Stereogum. His most recent album, Joy Ride, will be released in February 2018 on Sunnyside Records.

Raymond has also established himself as a sought-after guest soloist and educator at high schools and universities around the world. He has also presented at the Jazz Education Network national conference, and his two-part article “Developing the Entrepreneurial Mind: Teaching Students How to Bloom Where They’re Planted” was recently published by JAZZed magazine.

His frequent critical acclaim includes DownBeat commenting, “Electrifyingly new and strangely familiar at the same time. With his mix of modern sounds and old-fashioned feeling, Raymond is steering jazz in the right direction.”

Wayne Wallace is professor of practice in jazz studies and jazz trombone at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

A seven-time Grammy nominee, he is one of the most respected exponents of African American-Latin music in the world today.

Wallace is known for the use of traditional forms and styles in combination with contemporary music and has earned wide critical acclaim, including placement in both the trombone and producer categories of the DownBeat Critics Poll.

He is an accomplished arranger, educator, and composer with compositions for film and television. He has received grants from the Creative Work Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lila Wallace Foundation, and the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Wallace has performed, recorded, and studied with many acknowledged masters of the Afro-Latin and jazz idioms, such as Aretha Franklin, Bobby Hutcherson, Earth Wind and Fire, Pete Escovedo, Santana, Julian Priester, Conjunto Libre, Whitney Houston, Tito Puente, Steve Turre, John Lee Hooker, Con Funk Shun, Francisco Aguabella, Manny Oquendo and Libre, Max Roach, the Count Basie Orchestra, and Orestes Vilató. This experience has provided a solid foundation for Wallace's current explorations of the intersections of a wealth of cultural styles and rhythmic concepts.

Born and raised in San Francisco, Calif., Wallace was exposed to blues, country and western, R&B, jazz, and Afro-Caribbean music at an early age. The fertile musical environment of the San Francisco Bay Area shaped his career in a unique way. His studies of Afro-Latin music and jazz have included several trips to Cuba, New York City, and Puerto Rico.

Widely respected as a teacher and historian, Wallace has taught at San Jose State University, Stanford University, and the Jazzschool in Berkeley. He has conducted lectures, workshops and clinics in the Americas and Europe since 1983.

In addition, he is a member of the advisory committees of the San Jose Jazz Society and the Stanford Jazz Workshop.

As the head of the critically acclaimed Patois Records, Wallace has created a unique record label with a passionate mission of developing and chronicling the multi-lingual styles of the San Francisco Bay Area music scene.

Under his direction the label has released 13 recordings to critical acclaim, including recordings by Wallace, Marc and Paul van Wageningen, and vocalists Kat Parra, Alexa Weber-Morales, and Kristina.

Recently, the label released Wallace's Latin Jazz-Jazz Latin, an album that displays all of the thrilling interplay, melodic invention, and blazing improvisational flights that distinguish his music.

Salsa De La Bahía, a compilation showcasing Bay Area salsa and Latin jazz, produced by Wallace and Rita Hargrave, will be released Aug. 6.

He is an endorser of Conn-Selmer trombones.

Greg Ward is assistant professor of music in jazz studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

A saxophonist and composer born in Peoria, Illinois, Ward has performed and recorded with a varied group of artists, such as Prefuse 73, Lupe Fiasco, Tortoise, William Parker, Makaya McCraven, Linda Oh, and Mike Reed. As a bandleader, Ward has produced four recordings, including Fitted Shards: South Side Story, Phonic Juggernaut, Touch My Beloved’s Thought, and Rogue Parade: Stomping Off From Greenwood.

As a composer, he has received commissions from the Jazz Gallery in NYC, Chicago Jazz Institute, City of Chicago’s Made in Chicago: World Class Jazz Series, and the Peoria Ballet Company. He was awarded the New Music USA Van Lier Fellowship in 2012 and a DCASE IAP grant in 2017. Ward maintains an active international touring schedule with various ensembles.