Ron Modell, Professor Emeritus, NIU School of Music
Ron Modell, the founder of NIU’s world renowned jazz program passed away, Tuesday, June 10 at his DeKalb home. An accomplished musician, Modell joined NIU’s School of Music faculty in 1969 and quickly created the jazz program and established the NIU Jazz Ensemble as one of the finest collegiate jazz bands in the world.
A talented trumpeter, Modell played with legends like Louis Armstrong, Maynard Ferguson, Dizzy Gillespie, Louie Bellson and many more.
Modell brought many top tier performers to NIU. Duke Ellington’s final performance of his career was in the ballroom at the Holmes Student Center that now bears his name.
In 1983 Downbeat magazine ranked the NIU Jazz Ensemble as the top college band in the country.
In 1984, WTTW in Chicago produced a documentary on the jazz ensemble, appropriately titled A Year in the Life of the Greatest College Jazz Band in America.
Quincy Jones asked for the NIU Jazz Ensemble to serve as the band for a tribute performance at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland to honor Jones’ 50 years in music.
Quincy Jones with Ron Modell at the 1996 Montreux Jazz Festival
The four-hour concert was a triumph. So much that the festival asked the NIU Jazz Ensemble to perform another show on an outdoor stage the next day for people who hadn’t been able to buy tickets for the tribute. That performance lasted two hours and featured three encores.
One of the musicians in attendance was pop star Phil Collins, who was so impressed that he approached Modell with the opportunity to have the jazz ensemble perform with him on his upcoming summer long international big band tour. Modell assembled a roster of NIU Jazz Ensemble alumni to form a band for Collins and they joined him.
In 2014, Modell published his memoir, Loved Bein’ Here With You, with the forward written by Quincy Jones. The book’s title comes from the 1961 Peggy Lee song “I Love Being Here With You” which served as the signature song of the NIU Jazz Ensemble during Modell’s tenure as the band finished every concert with it.
Ron Modell with Duke Ellington, 1974
Last year, Tantara Productions unearthed a high quality recording of a January 1990 NIU Jazz Ensemble performance at Joliet’s Rialto Square Theatre. Under the direction of Modell, the set featured three well known guest soloists Carl Fontana, Conte Candoli and Louie Bellson. The concert recording and liner notes can be downloaded with proceeds going to NIU music scholarships endowed by Modell and by Lynn Lichtenauer (the wife of Tantara’s owner Bill Lichtenauer.)
On January 10, 1990 the NIU Jazz Ensemble (now known as the NIU Jazz Orchestra) played a concert at the iconic Rialto Square Theatre in Joliet, Illinois. The band had by then established a reputation as one of the very best collegiate jazz bands in the nation, a distinction it still holds today. Under the direction of founding faculty member Ron Modell, the Jazz Ensemble was joined that night by three well-known guest soloists Carl Fontana, Conte Candoli and Louie Bellson.
Recently, a high-quality audio recording of the concert was unearthed, and Joliet-based music production company Tantara Productions has made the recording and liner notes available for download. There is no retail price for the download, but there is a suggested donation of at least $10, and Tantara will donate all of the proceeds to NIU Foundation scholarship funds established in the names of both Ron Modell and Lynn Lichtenauer (the wife of Tantara’s owner Bill Lichtenauer).
The recording includes all 11 pieces performed that night and song and guest artist introductions by Modell.
NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY JAZZ ENSEMBLE with CARL FONTANA, CONTE CANDOLI and LOUIE BELLSON
February 10, 1990 – The Rialto Square Theatre, Joliet, Illinois
Director and Emcee – Ron Modell
Trumpets – Al Hood*, Ed Sloka*, Scott Hall, Anthony Wiggins, Mark Hoffman.Trombones – Tom MacTaggart*, Ryan Miller, Eric Caliendo, Ed Partyka (b-tb). Reeds – Matt James*, Ian Nevins(as), Ken Partyka*, Bill Kotrba (ts), Brian Budzik (bs). Rhythm – John Blasucci (p), Larry Kohut (b), Eric Montzka (d), Mark Banach(g), Bill Elliott (perc). * Lead
1. Carl Fontana intro
2. I’ve Got A Right To Sing The Blues c: Harold Arlen, Ted Koehler / a: Sammy Nestico / Carl Fontana(tb)
3. Emily c: Johnny Mandel, Johnny Mercer / a: Bill Rogers / Carl Fontana(tb)
4.Conte Candoli intro
5. Hip Shakin’ c: Frank Foster / a: Walt Levinsky or Dick Lieb (?) / Conte Candoli)tp)
6. It Might As Well Be Spring c: Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II / a: Bob Ojeda /Conte Candoli(tp)
7. A Night In Tunisia c: Dizzy Gillespie / a: Med Flory for Super Sax / Conte Candoli(tp),Al Hood(tp), Sax Section
8. Louie Bellson intro.
9. Ya Gotta Try c & a: Sammy Nestico / John Blasucci(p), Louie Bellson(d),Ken Partyka(ts), Bill Kotrba(ts)
10. Cinderella’s Waltz c & a: Don Menza / Mark Hoffman(tp), Louie Bellson(d)
11. If I Were A Bellson c/a: Frank Mantooth / Louie Bellson (d), Brian Budzik (bs)
12. Tune intro
13. Three Ton Blues c & a: Pete Christlieb / Ken Partyka(ts), Conte Candoli(tp),Carl Fontana(tb), Louie Bellson(d),
14. Tune Intro
15. Sing, Sing, Sing c: Louis Prima / Conte Candoli(tp), Carl Fontana(tb),Louie Bellson(d)
16. We Love Being Here With You c:Peggy Lee and Bill Schlugera: Phil Kelly / Ron Modell vocal
The NIU Jazz Orchestra is one of only 10 collegiate jazz programs invited to participate in the 2023 Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jack Rudin Jazz Championships in New York City. The competition is a two-day invitational, January 14-15. The championships are held throughout Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, located on Broadway at 60th Street.
The championships are live-streamed both days through JazzLive.com. Subscriptions can be purchased monthly at $9.99 or annually at $99.
Opportunities such as the Jack Rudin Jazz Championship provide for students not only the uniquely challenging goal of performance at a high level, but the chance to meet and interact with distinguished jazz artists, to encounter fellow jazz students from around the country, to share their craft and engage with an entirely new audience, and most importantly, to learn about jazz music’s history, practice, and impact in order to become informed and diligent participants in the jazz community.
Ten days, 10 students, seven performances in seven different venues, three master classes, leading a jam session at an international music festival and a lifetime of experiences. That’s what the NIU Jazz Ensemble encountered on a whirlwind tour of Mexico October 20 – 30, highlighted by their performance at the prestigious Festival Internacional JazzUV in Xalapa, Mexico.
Rodrigo Villanueva, NIU Professor of Jazz Studies and Director of the NIU Jazz Ensemble said that the cramped quarters and hectic travel could have been a challenge for the group, but if that was the case, they didn’t let it show.
“It was a lot of fun, and a great experience,” Villanueva said. “Usually when you travel with a group of people there’s at least one who is kind of the downer in the group, somebody who has an attitude or thinks things aren’t going to go well. But in this case nobody was like that. We had ten students and they were all great.”
Villanueva said playing so many times on the trip before their appearance at the festival really helped the ensemble tighten things up.
“In two of the master classes part of the topic was how to rehearse a group like ours, so I was able to rehearse stuff for our festival performance while I was conducting the master classes,” he said. “There were things that needed to be polished and we could use that time to fix stuff and explain how we work on different passages. We played five times before the festival, and after playing so many times, the group was so much more mature when we got to the festival.”
The ensemble that traveled to Mexico featured eight males and two females. Four of them are graduate students, and Villanueva said the mix proved to be very beneficial.
“There’s a wide range of ages,” he said. “We have two freshman who are 18, and then some of the students are up to 25 years old, but they got along great. Sometimes that part is tough, when not everybody is the same age or same level of school. Our grad students were very good role models, and took every opportunity to teach them something or show them how to execute things in different ways or just give then advice. It was great to see.
“Sometimes when you do this in a purely academic setting you only see each other once or twice a week. They were together all the time, and it made them work as a team. We’re a family now.”
After landing in Mexico City at 5:00 a.m. on October 20, the group played their first show that night at 10 p.m. in Cholula, Mexico not far from the epicenter of a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that occured just about a month before.
They also performed at Zinco, one of the most prestigious jazz clubs in all of Mexico.
Another highlight of the tour was a live concert at the Mexican Radio Institute (Instituto Mexicano de la Radio – IMER). IMER is a public broadcasting network similar to NPR in the United States.
The NIU Jazz Ensemble 2017 Tour to Mexico Soprano Saxophone, Robert Nordil*
Alto Saxophone, Karly Bunn
Tenor Saxophone, Elijah Wynn
Tenor Saxophone, Alex Pontious
Baritone, Christopher Jones
Rhythm Piano, Alexis Adams
Guitar, Daniel Nelson
Acoustic Bass and Electric Bass, Chano Cruz*
Drums, Vibes and Percussion, Nathan Sanders*
Drums and Percussion, Paul Perrilles*
*- graduate student
“Each of the students brought 10 CDs, hoping we could sell half of them,” Villanueva said. “We brought 110 CDs with us to Mexico and we came back with nothing. We sold 100 of them and I gave ten away. That was a record for me. Usually if you sell 50 CDs on a tour you’re lucky. The radio station performance was free. People got their tickets by calling into the station, and they were so grateful that most of them bought a CD. Some who didn’t bring money to the radio broadcast came to our show the next night and bought CDs. The kids were thrilled because they were sure they were going to have to bring a bunch of CDs home with them.”
While in Mexico, they visited the pyramids at Theotihuacan, and the Museum of Anthropology in Xalapa.
When in Mexico City they stayed in a hostel in a neighborhood where Hernan Cortes, the famous Spanish conquistador lived when he was in Mexico. It was a short walk to the radio station, the university and most importantly for ten college age students, coffee shops.
The four graduate students on the trip helped Villanueva conduct 13 auditions of prospective students for the masters program at NIU. “They are in the process of finishing up their applications,” he said. “I’ll show the auditions to my colleagues in February when we have our regular auditions. Hopefully some of them will come to NIU next year.”
NIU’s Center for Latino and Latin American Studies provided some financial support for the trip and as a return show of support, the NIU Jazz Ensemble will be performing at 6 p.m., Wednesday, November 29 in Cole Hall on the NIU Main Campus as part of The Social Justice Quilt Tour.
Join CLLAS, The Pick Museum and DREAM Action NIU for a private tour of the Social Justice Quilt Exhibit from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m., kicked off by the jazz concert.
The NIU Jazz Ensemble will also perform at the House Cafe in DeKalb on January 2 at 8 p.m. with special guests NIU Jazz Studies faculty members Fareed Haque and Geof Bradfield. They will run the program they will be present on January 3 at the Jazz Education Network International Conference at the Dallas, Texas Hyatt Regency.
The ensemble that traveled to Mexico featured eight males and two females. Four of them are graduate students, and Villanueva said the mix proved to be very beneficial.
While in Mexico, they visited the pyramids at Theotihuacan, and the Museum of Anthropology in Xalapa.
