Event Details

Friday, April 17, 2026, 7:30pm

Bengtson Auditorium, Russell Hall

Buy Tickets for Jazz Band One

$7-$17

UNI Jazz Band One

Christopher Merz, director

With Guest Composer/Drummer Phil Haynes

and 2026 Tom Capps Scholarship recipient 
Nathan Anderson, alto saxophone

Grace Dinneen, voice

Nathan Anderson, alto saxophone
with members of Jazz Band One

INTERMISSION

Featuring composer/drummer Phil Haynes

*indicates premiere performance

Personnel

UNI Jazz Band One

Saxophones/Woodwinds
Go Benesh, alto 1, soprano, flute
Marco Olachnovitch, alto 2, soprano, flute, clarinet
Camdyn Baxter, tenor 1
Abby Gaul, tenor 2
Oliver Palmer, baritone, flute, bass clarinet

Trumpets/Flugelhorns
Trey Blaser, lead
Sean Kiefer
Dora Roorda
Eric Torneten
Evan Wahlstrom

Trombones
Seth Anderson, lead
Kristen Engelhardt
Morgan Uitermarkt
Spencer Schnetzer, bass

Rhythm
Caden Heidebrink, guitar
Claretta Larson, vibraphone, congas, percussion
David Donald, piano
Martin Hachmann, bass
Jack Deahl, drums

With Grace Dinneen, voice

About the Artists

Phil Haynes (b. June 15, 1961, OR) is a 25 year veteran New York based artist and author now teaching at Pennsylvania’s Bucknell University. Haynes is featured on nearly 100 LP and CD releases by diverse American and European record labels. The international media have compared his drumming to masters Jack DeJohnette, Roy Haynes and Elvin Jones, and his compositions to Duke Ellington, Charles Ives, Charles Mingus and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. 

"The perfect middle between tradition and avant-garde, 
between power and sophistication, between accessibility and adventure."
~ Stef, www.freejazzblog.org

His recording credentials include many of the seminal musicians of this generation, notably saxophonists Anthony Braxton, Ellery Eskelin, and David Liebman; trumpeters Dave Douglas, Herb Robertson, and Paul Smoker; bassists Mark Dresser, Ken Filiano, and Drew Gress; pianists David Kikoski, Denman Maroney, and Michelle Rosewoman; guitarists Ben Monder, Steve Salerno, and Jim Yanda; vocalists Theo Bleckman, Nicholas Horner, and Hank Roberts; violinist Mark Feldman, and the composers collective Joint Venture. 

Contemporary Haynes ensembles include: his Americana string band, Free Country, featuring vocalist/cellist Hank Roberts; Two Brass Hit, w/trumpeters Thomas Heberer, Nate Wooley, and bassist Ken Filiano; Terra with guitarist Ben Monder and next gen saxophonist Peyton Plenninger; his signature originals trio with multiple line-ups, 2 Horns & What?, as well as the romantic piano trio, Day Dream, featuring Yamaha artist Steve Rudolph and bassist Drew Gress.   

philhaynesmusic.bandcamp.com

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Christopher Merz, Professor of Music, has served as Director of Jazz Studies and Director of the award-winning UNI Jazz Band One at the University of Northern Iowa since 2002. Under his direction, the band has traveled to South Africa, Cuba, and Thailand, and has recorded 16 CDs and 5 digital albums featuring many original compositions and arrangements by student and faculty writers. 

The 2024-2025 recipient of the Regents Award for Faculty Excellence, “recognizing his sustained record of excellence across the spectrum of faculty endeavors,” he has also received the School of Music’s John L. Baker Faculty Development award (2016), and the CHFA University Book and Supply Outstanding Teaching award recognizing excellence among tenure-track faculty (2006). He is a Past President of Jazz Educators of Iowa (JEI), and a member of their Hall of Fame (2015), as well as the Community Jazz Center of Des Moines Hall of Fame (2023). During his first year at UNI in 2000, he founded the UNI Combo Camp, an annual event for high school jazz students and music educators which has served well over 1000 students to date. He was awarded a professional development leave for the fall semester of 2025 to arrange the music of drummer Phil Haynes for large jazz ensemble. 

His recording credits include Steve McCraven, Darius Brubeck, John Rapson and Jon Snell, as well as his own projects; Counterculture, the Chris Merz/Bob Washut Duo, The X-tet, and Equilateral.  His 1997 release with the X-tet, Mystery is My Story, prompted Dave Brubeck to write, “I am very pleased with this wonderful band. Naturally I would admire a group like yours that, to me, is a grand extension of what we were doing...when we were the ‘new thing’”.  These days he can be heard with the Iowa Jazz Composers’ Orchestra led by colleague Mike Conrad, the soul jazz sextet Big Fun led by Iowa jazz legend Steve Grismore, and his own current bands, Christopher’s Very Happy. Band and Shorter Stories, which celebrates the music of master composer Wayne Shorter. An accomplished composer/arranger for large jazz ensembles, Merz has received commissions from university and high school big bands throughout the country, and is published through iJazzmusic, UNC Jazz Press and ejazzlines/Walrus.  He is also a highly sought after guest soloist, clinician and conductor at university and high school jazz festivals nationwide, and is endorsed by D’Addario and TM Custom tenor saxophones.