Ryan Middagh Jazz Orchestra featuring Joel Frahm

About:  

Ryan Middagh is an innovative bandleader, composer, arranger, saxophonist, and educator who has traveled the globe sharing his unique blend of talents and musical influences with audiences and music students. A passionate advocate for jazz education at all levels, he pursues creative programming and is devoted to reaching diverse communities through jazz.

An active jazz composer and arranger, Middagh has received numerous commissions from musicians and ensembles throughout the United States. He has written for Grammy-winning artists, DownBeat award-winning educational ensembles, and his work has been recorded by prominent collegiate and professional ensembles.

Equally skilled as a soloist, collaborator and band leader, Middagh performs at jazz festivals around the world, including tours and performances on behalf of the U.S. State Department. While at home, he is a top-call studio musician in Nashville and performs in a wide array of genres. In addition to leading his own jazz small groups, he directs the Ryan Middagh Jazz Orchestra which released their debut record “Live From Nashville” in the fall of 2019 followed by their second album “Tenor Madness” in 2025 which has gained international critical acclaim.

Middagh is an artist and clinician for Yamaha Saxophones, JodyJazz Mouthpieces, D’addario Reeds and is the Director of Jazz Studies of the DownBeat award-winning program at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.

Contact Information:

Web: https://ryanmiddagh.com/
Other links:

Summer of the Arts Festivals:  

• 2025 Iowa City Jazz Festival

 

About:  

Born in Racine, Wisc., in 1969, saxophonist Joel Frahm studied classical piano and bassoon before taking to the tenor saxophone when he was 14 years old. In 1985, his family moved to Hartford, Conn., where he attended the jazz program at the high school. It was here that he and pianist Brad Mehldau first crossed paths and got to know each other.

After graduating high school, Frahm went to Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School for the Arts and from there earned his B.A. in Jazz Performance at Manhattan School of Music.

His natural and advanced ability for his age quickly led to a strong presence that attracted attention in New York. Initially, he worked with various blues and jazz bands meeting a coterie of like-minded musicians who were already a bit more established than he including but not limited to such artists as drummer Matt Wilson and pianist David Berkman; he would work and record with both on numerous occasions. A player with varied musical sensibility and both traditional and modern leanings, Frahm began working with a wide variety of jazz mainstays – both those of different generations as well as a number of peers and colleagues closer to his own age. For instance, Frahm worked with elders and icons such as Maynard Ferguson, Betty Carter and Dewey Redman as well as Lee Konitz, Pat Martino and Andrew Hill. He also worked with near contemporaries or contemporaries such as Wilson, Larry Goldings, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Ben Allison, Ingrid Jensen, Dena Derose and Kyle Eastwood.

He also developed a reputation as a saxophonist who can accompany and work with singers – a quality that he exploits and mines to this day. In addition to working with the aforementioned pianist-vocalist DeRose and tonight’s bandleader Diane Schuur, a quick check of the Frahm discography underscores the point. Among the vocalists he has shared the bandstand and the studio with are: Cyrille Aimee, Rondi Charleston, Laine Cooke, Dana Lauren, Chris McNulty, Jane Monheit, Janis Siegel, Tessa Souter and Joan Stiles.

In 2004, Frahm, collaborating with Mehldau, released Don’t Explain, for the Palmetto label. No one was surprised that the two collaborated – other then by the music itself, which was just that: surprising and entertaining. At the time, Thomas Conrad, the veteran critic writing for Jazz Times, said in part, “…Frahm and Mehldau are notably successful in avoiding the primary risk of saxophone and piano duo recordings, which is their tendency to become austere, non-swinging recitals between contrapuntists. They conduct unhurried conversations over songs, closely listening and responding, like on ‘East of the Sun.’ But they also provoke, like on ‘Oleo,’ where they push one another so far from their starting point that their joint exercise in free thinking is conducted among faint shadows of Sonny Rollins’ idea. And the hook-up between these two classmates is deep: On Ornette Coleman’s ‘Turnaround,’ they function in and out of one another’s thoughts.

In the decade-plus, since, Frahm has become one of the more in-demand saxophonists – certainly standing among the top-tier players in New York as well as globally. He’s since released a number of recordings under his own name – mostly for the Palmetto, Anzic and Smalls labels. Additionally, his contributions to others’ recordings now exceed the 100-title mark. In 2018, Joel was a part of two Grammy- nominated CDs, Freddy Cole’s My Mood Is You, and Dafnis Prieto’s Back To The Sunset, which won the Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Ensemble recording. In 2020, Brad Mehldau’s “Finding Gabriel” won the Grammy for Best Jazz Recording, on which Joel was a featured soloist. Joel is also a highly sought after educator who has been an artist in residence at universities and jazz workshops around the world. Joel recently joined the faculty at the Texas State University jazz program and hopes to grow his saxophone studio into a desired place of study for aspiring improvisers.

Contact Information:

Web: https://joelfrahm.com/home
Other links:

Summer of the Arts Festivals:  

• 2025 Iowa City Jazz Festival