2013 All-State Jazz Ensemble Director
We are proud to announce Terell Stafford as our All-State Jazz
Ensemble Director for the 75th MMEA Conference.
You can find his biography after the link.
Terell Stafford has been hailed as “one of the great players of our
time, a fabulous trumpet player” by piano legend McCoy Tyner.
Known for being a gifted and versatile player with a voice
all his own, Stafford combines lyricism and a deep love of melody
with a spirited, adventurous edge. This uniquely expressive,
well-defined musical talent allows Stafford the ability to dance in
and around the rich trumpet tradition of his predecessors while making his own inroads.
Since the mid-1990’s Stafford has performed with groups such as Benny Golson’s Sextet,
McCoy Tyner’s Sextet, the Kenny Barron Sextet, the Frank Wess Quintet, the Jimmy Heath Big
Band, the Clayton Brothers Quintet, and the Jon Faddis Orchestra. Currently, he is a member of
the GRAMMY award winning Vanguard Jazz Orchestra as well as drummer Matt Wilson’s
group, “Arts and Crafts,” and drummer Alvin Queen’s group, “Alvin Queen and the Organics.”
Stafford has recorded six albums as a leader, including the critically acclaimed This Side of
Strayhorn (MAXJAZZ 2011), and is heard on over 90 albums as a sideman.
An educator as well as a performer, Stafford currently holds the positions of Director of Jazz
Studies and Chair of Instrumental Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia and is a clinician
for the prestigious Vail Foundation in Colorado and Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially
Ellington Program. He has also served as a member of the faculty for the Juilliard Institute for
Jazz Studies in New York. Stafford was born in Miami and raised in Chicago and Silver Spring,
Maryland. He received a Bachelor of Science in Music Education from the University of Maryland
in 1988 and a Masters of Music from Rutgers University in 1993.