Jack Wilkins

Biography

Director of Jazz Studies, coordinates the Jazz Ensembles program; teaches Jazz Improvisation, Jazz Styles and Analysis, Jazz History, and Applied senior and graduate level jazz performance courses; and performs with the USF Faculty Jazz Ensemble.

Wilkins directs the USF Jazztet, which has performed at the at the invitation of some of the world’s most prestigious jazz festivals including Italy’s Umbria Jazz Festival and Tuscany Jazz Festival, Jazz a Juan and Jazz a Vienne in France, the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, and the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands.

An accomplished saxophonist, Wilkins has released three CDs; Artwork, Ridgelines, and Dear Old Stockholm. Wilkins can also be heard as a featured soloist on the internationally acclaimed recordings by Chuck Owen and the Jazz SURGE.

Wilkins has performed and recorded with many jazz greats including: Nat Adderley, J.J. Johnson, Red Rodney, Bobby Shew, Hank Marr, the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, and David Baker’s 21st Century Bebop Band. Wilkins has recorded for a number of commercial projects, including John Mellencamp’s Scarecrow and Chronicles CDs.

A faculty member of the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop for over 20 years, Wilkins also teaches at the Jazzwise Summer Workshops in London, is a Selmer Instrument Company Artist/Clinician, and is the author of Essential Jazz Etudes published by Mel Bay Inc.

Wilkins completed undergraduate work at the University of Miami and Appalachian State University and earned his MM in jazz studies from Indiana University.