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Concerts and events made possible, in part, with support from the Wells Philanthropic Services provided by grants from the John, Anna, and Martha Jane Fields Memorial Trust Foundation and the Florence V. Carroll Charitable Trust, The Esther and George Jaruga Charitable Foundation, the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County's ArtsEverywhere initiative, and the Arts Project Support Grant and Arts Recovery Grant through the Indiana Arts Commission.

Our Student Jazz Performanxce Series presents Sam Butler “Folklore” Sextet: 

ANNOUNCING DEBUT ALBUM "FOLKLORE" OUT MAY 5TH!AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW!  releases May 5, 2023

Pre-order "Folklore" at https://shiftingparadigmrecords.bandcamp.com/album/folklore! First single out March 31st, available on all platforms. Check out the promo video below, and sign up for your pre-order today! The debut album from trumpet/composer Sam Butler, Folklore is a collection of original music inspired by the elements of jazz, folk, rock, and avant-garde that have defined his musical journey to this point. Folklore focuses on building on musical motifs both in improvisation and composition, and features an ensemble stacked with musicians from all across the United States and the world, including Greg Ward, Garrett Fasig, Luther Allison, Brendan Keller-Tuberg, and Kenny Phelps.

Sam Butler - Trumpet

Garrett Fasig - Alto

Kyle Cantrell - Tenor

Marco Giovanelli - Piano

Brendan Keller-Tuberg - Bass

Francis Bassett-Diller - Drums

Kyle Cantrell is a double major in jazz saxophone and music education at Indiana University. While at Indiana University, he performed with Melissa Aldana, Emmet Cohen, Orrin Evans, and the Jack Rudin jazz championship at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Kyle has also recorded his first solo album of original music which he plans to release sometime this fall. In his career as an educator he has worked at Bedford North Lawrence, Edgewood Junior High School and Edgewood High School where he taught 6-8th grade woodwinds and marching band. He is currently finishing his student teaching at Noblesville High School under the direction of Bethany Robinson. Going forward, Kyle plans on becoming a band director, while continuing to perform as a professional musician.

Marco Giovannelli is a R&B/Jazz pianist, producer, and educator from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has contributed to Pop, R&B, and Hip/Hop records by some of the industry’s most in-demand artists from Chicago, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and beyond. This diverse background allows him to do what he loves most: to share music with the world.

Marco has worked as a producer on recordings by artists such as Bankrol Hayden, MannyWellz, SpotemGottem, Ebony Loren, and Aiden Intro, in addition to performances alongside Bootsy Collins and Ré Alissa. Since beginning his work as a producer, the music he has touched has yielded over 100 million streams across platforms. On the stage, Marco is an active member of the Indianapolis and Minneapolis music scenes, playing in several notable groups including his band, Funk Almighty. Funk Almighty, which spurred out of the pandemic, has grown from friends creating virtual music covers to playing at some of Indianapolis and Chicago’s most popular live music venues. In that group, Marco serves as the keyboardist, as well as Musical Director, and local Band Manager. Marco is finishing a degree in Jazz Studies from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, where he serves as the keyboardist and musical director for the legendary IU Soul Revue.

Garrett Fasig is an emerging composer and saxophonist originally from Defiance, Ohio. In his short career thus far, Garrett has written several original jazz ensemble compositions that have been recorded by the Brent Wallarab Jazz Ensemble, a full program of music for jazz sextet and string quartet and has been commissioned for both jazz ensemble and orchestral works by the New York Youth Symphony and Brianna Thomas, respectively. He has also learned and performed alongside world-class musicians Walter Smith III, Steve Houghton Dayna Stephens, and Greg Ward.

The first eleven years of Garrett’s musical journey were devoted to his development on the saxophone. This led him to the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University where he would go on to complete both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in jazz studies. While spending most of his time studying saxophone, Garrett discovered a passion for composing and began writing music for jazz ensemble on the side. This changed in early 2020 when a neurological disorder, dystonia, would prevent him from spending long amounts of time playing. Garrett turned his focus towards composition, and by the next year was awarded the David N. Baker Jazz Composition Scholarship from BMI.

Brendan Keller-Tuberg is an emerging bassist and composer from Canberra, Australia. Having graduated from the Australian National University in 2018, he has established himself as a regular performer in the region, having played with Miroslav Bukovsky, John Mackey, Paul Grabowsky, Dave Eggar and Christian Howes among many others during his studies. He received First Prize and People’s Choice in the ANU Chamber Music Competition in both 2014 and 2016 for performances with numerous jazz ensembles as well as the Canberra Experimental Music Studio.

In August 2017, he released a debut album of original compositions for piano trio. Featuring ANU alumni Tate Sheridan and Daniel Faber, it was released to a sold-out audience at the Street Theatre in Canberra and consequently featured on ABC Jazz. Writing for BMA Magazine, Geoff Page praised the album, stating that ‘judg[ing] from this new, eponymous CD by young local bassist Brendan Keller-Tuberg, [the piano trio’s] possibilities are far from exhausted.’ It would go on to be one of BMA’s top releases of 2017.

From 2018 until March 2020, Brendan lived in the United States to pursue a masters' degree on scholarship from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. During this period, he performed with Walter Smith III, Emmet Cohen, Dayna Stephens, Greg Ward, John Raymond, June Lee, and Vince Mendoza, among others. In January 2020, he travelled with IU’s Wallarab Jazz Ensemble to New York to compete in the Lincoln Center’s inaugural Jack Rudin Jazz Championship, who placed 2nd among ten of the finest jazz programs in the US.

A Freedman Jazz Fellowship nominee of 2019, Brendan is in demand as both a sideman and leader. He is a member and co-leader of Crossroads Quintet, who released their debut album ‘Intertwined’ in May 2020 on Midwest Crush Music, and can also be heard on Amanda Gardier’s latest release ‘Flyover Country’. Brendan is also the 2021 Composer in Residence for WAYJO (West Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra). Brendan is a current doctoral student and Associate Instructor at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University. His sophomore album In Spite Of It All, featuring Julien Wilson, Wilbur Whitta, Ashley Ballat, Lewis Pierre-Humbert and others, was released on November 5, 2021 via Shifting Paradigm Records.

Sam Butler grew up in a musical family in Fairhope, Alabama. Since birth, he was exposed to all forms of music. Between having grandparents that are jazz musicians and a father who exposed him to both classic and contemporary jazz icons from a young age, it was natural for Sam began to develop a keen interest in jazz music. He began playing his father's old trumpet at age 11, and shortly after he began taking lessons with acclaimed trumpet educator Peter Wood. In high school, Sam was selected into Music For All's Jazz Band of America in both 2017 and 2018, and he won the 2017 Pensacola Jazz Competition. Throughout these years, Sam ran his own bands in the Gulf Coast area and played as a sideman in many others, including being featured as one of the soloists in the Mobile Big Band Society.

Sam began studying at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in 2018, and quickly flourished both as a performer and composer/arranger. He auditioned into the top jazz ensemble as a freshman, was a semi-finalist in the Jazz Division of the 2019 and 2020 National Trumpet Competition, and has played with the Plummer Jazz Sextet, a select group of musicians that performs all original music. Sam has also recorded or performed a half dozen of his own large ensemble compositions and arrangements with various ensembles, and he recorded an album of all original compositions with his sextet “Spoken Thoughts,” which was released in early 2022. Having now graduated from Indiana in May of 2022, Sam is returning to complete his master’s degree at the Jacobs School of Music as an Associate Instructor in the Jazz Studies Department.

In addition to being an accomplished performer and composer/arranger, Sam is also an active educator. He has recently been a Teaching Assistant at the Brevard Summer Jazz Institute, where he shared the stage with artists such as Michael Dease, Rodney Whitaker, Sharel Cassity, Brandon Lee, Gregory Tardy, Ulysses Owens, Jr, and more.

Francis Bassett-Dilley is an up and coming drummer from Oak Park, IL . He began playing drums after receiving a drum set at age 10 and instantly fell in love with it, finding an authentic way to express himself. Francis is currently pursuing a degree in Jazz Studies with a focus on drum set at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He has had the honor of studying under and performing with great musicians such as Sean Dobbins, Greg Ward, John Raymond, Wayne Wallace, Pat Harbison, Paul Wertico, Ernie Adams, Jon Deitemyer, Vincent Davis, and more. After completing his studies at Indiana, Francis plans to pursue a career in performing, teaching, recording, and touring.