Come see Jon Parker play with the Mandy Harvey Trio at Dazzle (9th and Lincoln, Denver CO), rated “One of the World’s 100 Great Jazz Clubs” by Downbeat Magazine. Shows are at 7pm and 9pm, Saturday, August 4th with Mandy Harvey, vocals; Jon Parker, piano; and Ian Hutchison, bass. Tickets are $10.

MULTI-TALENTED GRAD STUDENT TAKES ON A NEW ROLE by Valerie Finholm, DU Today By day, pianist, composer and conductor Jon Parker (BA ’08) is a master’s degree student in musicology and a graduate teaching assistant at DU. By night, the award-winning musician is a jazz bandleader and piano player at the Hillstone Restaurant in Cherry Creek. Read the full article HERE.

Last week I had resolved to start updating my MySpace page again. The decision was not even on the forefront of my mind until I realized that Google, Bing and Yahoo searches for my name resulted in my MySpace page being among the top of the list. Well, this might not be a bad thing. According to Hypebot, the new owners of MySpace say they are actually growing the site, with the number of unique users moving up in January. They say it’s because of integration with Facebook and Twitter, but also because of their huge music library of 42

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It may come as no surprise that more corporations are hiring more PR folks with expertise in social media. Facebook and Twitter are just the start. There are a variety of jobs in marketing and social media ranging from Bloggers to Social Media Marketing Managers. The number 1 city for these kinds of jobs is New York City, with the vast majority in California. Denver ranked 17th. This information leads me to believe that musicians should be capitalizing on Social Media. You may say, “Yeah Duh” but you would be surprised how many musicians don’t have websites, and forget to

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So I watched the entire Grammy Awards presentation last night for the first time. In past years I’ve watched part of it, or none at all and read about the winners the next day. This has more to do with the fact that the awards I tend to care about (Jazz, Classical, etc.) aren’t broadcast during the premier portion of the event. Lately, however, I’ve been getting more interested in popular styles and trying to figure out what makes these artists so sought-after by the masses. A big part of my interest has been the war between organic music, and

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Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how musicians these days approach making a living. There seems to be a couple of different tracks people follow. 1- Some musicians pursue their dream by playing, playing playing. They choose not to go to school to study music, but instead learn everything they know from the bandstand and their own practice. Often these people become great players and play tons of gigs. I’ve known quite a few Jazz and pop musicians that go about their careers this way. Classical musicians, on the other hand, rarely pursue a career in music through this

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The University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music hosts their Jazz Night on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 at 7:30pm in the Gates Concert Hall at the Newman Center for the Performing Arts. Jon will be playing Chick Corea’s “Armando’s Rhumba” in a feature performance with the Lamont Jazz Orchestra, directed by Lynn Baker, Director of the Lamont School of Music Jazz and Commercial Music Program. This feature performance is one of 3 performances Jon will give as the winner of the 2011-2012 Lamont Jazz Solo Honors Competition. Admission is free and open to the public.

I am excited to say that I was awarded 3rd place in the finals of the 2011 Kathleen T. and Philip B. Phillips, M.D. Jazz Piano Competition sponsored by the University of West Florida. The concert took place in the historic Saenger Theatre in downtown Pensacola, FL on Friday April 1st, 2011 and featured the top five finalists from around the country. Congratulations to the winner Emmet Cohen from the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music. Visit http://uwf.edu/music/phillipsjazz/ for more information on the competition.