UC San Diego Jazz Camp is a five-day summer program that provides small group and individual instruction to intermediate and advanced jazz musicians, ages 14 through adult. Classes and workshops explore genres and techniques within the broader jazz idiom, including swing, be-bop, jazz-blues, cool jazz, fusion, and improvisation. The all-star faculty is comprised of more than a dozen nationally and internationally renowned jazz musicians and educators, all of whom have extensive backgrounds in performance. The most recent camp faculty included saxophonist David Borgo, composer/pianist Anthony Davis, contrabassist Mark Dresser, trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos, and drummer Willie Jones III among others.

Each camp culminates in an evening finale concert on the fifth day. Small student ensembles take the stage in the intimate Conrad Prebys Recital Hall to perform standards, improvisations and original compositions, often joined by their faculty coach. The range and depth of talent on display throughout the evening speaks to the rigor and vitality of the camp’s intensive and immersive approach, as the students put their instruction to immediate use.

UCSD-TV has covered every Jazz Camp Finale Concert since 2009, and continues with the 2016 edition. We like to think the resulting program is more than just an entertaining revue of ensembles; it’s also an opportunity to see and hear future jazz stars early in their development, and there are few experiences in the arts more exciting than that.