Washington DC Jazz Hero
Charlie Young brings deep knowledge, virtuoso chops and keen purpose to everything he does as a college professor, popular clinician, sparking soloist and touring conductor. Doing so at Howard University, the historically Black research university in Washington, D.C., where he serves as Professor of Saxophone and Coordinator of Instrumental Jazz Studies. he goes well beyond normal duties of a university faculty member.
Young has had a rich performing and recording career, sharing the concert stage with icons and in 1988 recruited as a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra – where he’s presently Artistic Director/Conductor and lead saxophonist. Young joined the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra (SJMO) in 1995, and was its principal woodwind specialist for over 15 years; in 2013, he was appointed artistic director and conductor, and he’s since then led the band in Washington, DC, elsewhere in the United States, and on a global tour. Charlie’s erudition and sense of humor always delight.
In addition, Young is a recognized clinician in classical and jazz saxophone performance, and jazz education. His educational outreach has gone so far as to present the inaugural concert and lecture at the 2008 opening of the New American University in Cairo, Egypt. With over thirty recordings in his discography, including his solo So Long Ago, and having made presentations in Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Kenya, South Africa, Singapore, Europe and Japan – from our United States capital – Charlie Young has earned an international reputation befitting a Jazz Hero.
—By John Edward Hasse
