James Ketch

Jim Ketch enjoys an active career as trumpet performer, conductor, educator, and Summit Recording Artist. His 2009 release Next Set and 2012 release A Distant View were well received by the national jazz community gaining favorable reviews in JazzReview.com and AllMusicGuide.com. and Jazz Times. Next Set was chosen by Detroit’s Jazz Station WDET as a “Destination Jazz 2009 Highly Recommended New CD.” His recording of Tom Harrell’s Sail Away (from A Distant View) was 11th on WRTI, Public Radio for Philadelphia’s Top 100 Jazz Tunes of 2012.
Mr. Ketch is also a Bach trumpet clinician, Professor of Music and Director of Jazz Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Associate Director of Swing Central for the Savannah Music Festival, Music Director of the North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra, and a faculty member of the famed Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop. Recent appearances have included performances in Washington D.C. (Blues Alley and the Bohemian Gardens) with Lee Konitz and Joel Frahm, at the Savannah Music Festival with the Marcus Roberts Trio, Ted Nash, Wycliffe Gordon, and Marcus Printup, and at UNC-Chapel Hill will Branford Marsalis, John Pizzarelli, and Rene Marie.

As a conductor, Professor Ketch has taken his UNC Jazz Band to festivals in France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands and to festivals in New Orleans, LA. In conjunction with Jazz at Lincoln Center, Ketch has hosted 9 regional Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Festivals at UNC. He has also conducted All-State Jazz Bands in North and South Carolina, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and Louisiana, and he has led Regional Jazz Bands in North Carolina, the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Tennessee.

Mr. Ketch is currently writing Jazz Essentials for Trumpet which he hopes to publish in 2014. He is also at work on a book that focuses on Ensemble Improvising on the Blues with the members of the Marcus Roberts Trio. Ketch has been awarded three distinguished teaching awards while serving as a Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill