Miles Ahead Big Band with special guest Adam Theis

The members of the Stanford Jazz Workshop’s Miles Ahead Big Band are among the best young jazz musicians in Northern California. Coming from high schools around the Bay Area, these passionate jazzers meet every week through SJW’s afterschool program to develop their ensemble and improvisation skills, and they put their heart and soul into every performance. It’s no surprise that they’ve won awards at the Monterey Jazz Festival’s Next Generation Jazz Festival and the High School Honors Outstanding Performance award in the Asynchronous Large Jazz Ensemble category in the 44th Annual DownBeat Magazine Student Awards!

We’re thrilled to have Adam Theis (pronounced “Thēese”) perform at the Stanford Jazz Festival for the first time. Adam is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, bandleader and composer. He plays trombone, trumpet, tuba, bass, keyboards and anything/everything else he can get his hands on. In 2000, he co-founded Jazz Mafia – an eclectic artist collective of some of the most forward thinking and accomplished players in the fields of electro, hip-hop, world, classical and of course, jazz. As Jazz Mafia’s director, Adam has assembled over 100 different live projects over the past 20 years and led/co-led dozens of acclaimed bands.