Dr. Jeff Erickson recently retired as the Director of Jazz Studies from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, where he directed the Jazz Orchestra, jazz combos, and taught jazz improvisation and the saxophone studio. He has graduate degrees in saxophone and jazz performance from DePaul University and the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. Busy as a guest artist and clinician at jazz festivals, woodwind competitions, universities, and public schools, Erickson also performs widely with a number of groups, including his own quartet and the La Crosse Jazz Orchestra.

With musical experiences covering a broad variety of genres and styles, Erickson has appeared with a diverse set of artists including Clark Terry, Kurt Elling, Byron Stripling, Wycliffe Gordon, Wayne Newton, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Frankie Valli, Bernadette Peters and the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra. He has performed professionally with symphony orchestras, touring Broadway shows and been featured on a number of jazz and pop recordings. From 2003-08, he was the lead alto saxophonist and director for The Wisconsin Jazz Orchestra. Prior to that, he lived in Chicago, where he was a member of the Barrett Deems’ big band, the Grammy-nominated 911 Mambo Orchestra, and served as the musical director for Martin Vicente’s nine-piece afro-salsa group Energia! As a writer, Erickson’s big band and Latin jazz arrangements have been performed by both college and professional big bands. He also writes for the Jeff Erickson Quartet and this group has performed his compositions at the North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conference. He has also presented and performed multiple times at the Jazz Education Network (JEN) Conference, most recently conducting an improvisation workshop titled “Signifying on the Greeks: The Use of Rhetorical Devices in Jazz Improvisation.”