Jazz Band

On September 24, the Gulf Coast Jazz Collective will perform jazz standards inspired by the music of Gershwin and Porter, Berlin and Kern, Rodgers and Hart – composers who wrote melodies so perfectly constructed that jazz musicians have been reinventing them for nearly a century.

We listen back to our show from 2025 featuring Emmy-nominated jazz trumpeter, vocalist and composer Benny Benack III performing live in studio with musicians from the FGCU Jazz Combo.

Haven’t been to the Baker Museum yet? Now’s your chance. The Baker Museum is offering free admission on Sundays beginning May 17 and continuing through Sept. 6 along with Art After Hours on the last Wednesday of each month. Summer at the Baker also includes jazz in the Daniels Pavilion.

The FGCU Jazz Combo will perform original student compositions inspired by multidisciplinary Miami artist Onajide Shabaka on Feb. 3. His exhibition, “Becoming Tomorrow’s Dream,” is on view in the Wasmer Gallery in the Arts Complex at Florida Gulf Coast University.

We listen back to our April show featuring Emmy-nominated jazz trumpeter, vocalist and composer Benny Benack III performing live in studio with the Florida Gulf Coast University Jazz Combo.

In this second encore edition of our April show featuring Emmy-nominated jazz trumpeter, vocalist and composer Benny Benack III performing with the Florida Gulf Coast University Jazz Combo, we hear even more music performed live in studio, including a bonus track featuring Benack and FGCU Director of Jazz Studies and bassist Brandon Robertson.

We listen back to our April show featuring Emmy-nominated jazz trumpeter, vocalist and composer Benny Benack III performing live in studio with the Florida Gulf Coast University Jazz Combo.

Emmy-nominated jazz trumpeter, vocalist and composer Benny Benack III is in Southwest Florida working and performing with musicians in the Florida Gulf Coast University Jazz combo. Benack and the combo perform live in the WGCU studios, and we explore how the university’s jazz studies program continues to grow.

Florida Gulf Coast University Director of Jazz Studies and bass player Brandon Robertson will perform with his quartet at a concert this Saturday, May 6 at the Center for the Arts Bonita Springs. The concert will contribute to the future development of a jazz studies department at FGCU.

Multi-instrumentalist, singer, dancer, band leader, and composer Gunhild Carling will perform Friday, Feb. 24 in the Grand Atrium of the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center as part of the center’s “Jazzy Nights” music series. We talk with Carling about her remarkable musical upbringing, her affinity for American jazz music from the 1920s and 30s, and her approach to performing and composing new music.