INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT Education and Workforce
From making the elderly safer in
their own homes to making electricity available around the world, ideas made possible by UTA students
that come from across the globe are
working to make all our lives better.
This just proves that knowledge is
attracted to North Texas.
ARE YOU ON THE
CLOCK?
If you're a music lover and it’s
One O’Clock, you must be at the
University of North Texas.
The One O’Clock Lab Band,
directed by Jay Saunders, is the
premier performing ensemble of
Thailand, where the King of Thailand decided to “sit in” with the
band. They’ve played jazz festivals
worldwide, including in Vienne,
Monterey, Spoleto, Cork/Guinness
and were the first college band
to perform at Montreux. They’ve
made appearances in major jazz
venues such as Birdland in NYC,
Blues Alley in D.C. and Catalina’s
in LA, and have even performed
by Presidential invitation at the
White House, where they were
joined on-stage by Duke Ellington
and Stan Getz.
Why, after all these years, is
UNT’s One O’Clock still such a
magnet for international students?
Multi-award winning One O’Clock Lab Band draws students from around the world.
nine lab bands at the internationally acclaimed University of North
Texas jazz studies program in
Denton, Texas – each named for its
hour of rehearsal – and has received
six Grammy nominations since the
1970s, with the most recent in 2010,
including two for Lab 2009.
The UNT jazz studies program
is a huge drawing card for music
majors around the world and
those who have made it into the
One O’Clock Lab Band have come
from numerous countries, including Canada, South Korea, South
Africa, Belgium, New Zealand,
Sweden, Czech Republic, Germany, England, Australia, Spain and
all across the U.S.
The band has toured internationally over the decades,
including performances in Russia,
England, Australia, Portugal,
Finland, Hong Kong and even
“The band continues to draw
students from around the world
because students know they
will be collaborating with peers
who are among the most accomplished and hard-working in the
country,” said Dr. John Murphy,
chair of Jazz Studies. “They know
they’ll be making music at a high
level, participating in the creating of original compositions and
arrangements, performing with
high-profile guest artists, recording
a well-produced yearly CD, being
coached by dedicated artist-teachers, and building a peer network
that will serve them years into the
future as their UNT peers become
their professional peers.”
And these “professional peers”
are virtually everywhere in the
professional music industry – Norah Jones, bassist Michael League
(leader of the group Snarky
Puppy), drummer Ari Hoenig, saxophonist Jeff Coffin (with the Dave
Matthews Band), trumpeter Frank
Greene (formerly with the David
Letterman Show Band), bassist
Tony Scherr, drummer Keith Carlock (with Steely Dan), trumpeter
Jim Rotondi, trombonist Conrad
Herwig, guitarist Tim Miller, and
trumpeter David Weiss (with the
band The Cookers).
The One O’Clock Lab Band
has received critical acclaim from
the biggest names in the industry.
After Duke Ellington played
with the band at the White House,
he simply said, “I wish it were
mine.” Dave Brubeck commented
that, “Most of the international
acceptance of jazz education
can be traced to the University
of North Texas, Denton, Texas,
and the wonderful program they
inaugurated.