Mike Conrad is a 37-year-old Bettendorf native, jazz pianist, composer and arranger.
Like many of us, Mike Conrad is just making it up as he goes along.
Unlike most of us, however, the 37-year-old – a Bettendorf High School alum whose trio headlines a June 29 concert at Davenport's Redstone Room – has won international acclaim and several awards for his improvisational wizardry as a composer, arranger, pianist, and trombonist.
Conrad started taking piano lessons in third grade (after his older sister began playing), and, in school band, took up the trombone in fifth grade. Conrad went on to play in marching and jazz bands in high school, and participated in a summer jazz camp – which was looking for a trombone player – at Davenport's Annie Wittenmyer complex.
"I liked the music a lot,” Conrad said recently, “and from there, I looked for more jazz opportunities. My love of the music really grew from checking out CDs from the Bettendorf Public Library."
He particularly loved listening to Duke Ellington, and later got into the jazz-piano legends Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson. He didn't, however, really take jazz-piano lessons, and was self-taught.
“In a way, it's easier to improvise on piano versus the physical challenges of trombone,” he said. "It can be frustrating; I'm playing less and less trombone these days, which makes me sad, but part of it is the reality that it's so much harder to maintain. The thing I love about the trombone is the expressive possibility there – how close it is to the human voice."
Conrad started writing his own music after having fun copying pre-existing music during middle school, and got more serious about composing in high school, participating in a Metro Arts summer program with QC trumpeter Edgar Crockett.
"I just loved the way that it sounded," Conrad said of jazz. "It has to do with that spontaneous feeling in the music.
“It sounds like there's a little risk-taking involved, [and] there's excitement in that," he added, noting he also loves the interactive aspect of performing with others and being in the moment, coming up with new licks on the spot.
He attended the University of Northern Iowa for undergrad studies, earning a degree in music education with a jazz emphasis. Conrad also got a degree in composition and music theory, and played in jazz ensembles while at UNI.
For his master's degree, he studied jazz composition at the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Conrad taught high school band for a couple years in Waterloo, Iowa, before embarking on his doctoral degree in music education at University of Northern Colorado (partly because a friend and a jazz teacher from UNI went there). Conrad earned that degree in 2018, and started teaching at UNI right after.
"There was like this gravitational pull to UNI,” he said. “I had done my undergrad there, I had a lot of fond memories and knew a lot of people there. It was close to home, and I've been there ever since."
From UNI to Carnegie Hall
An associate professor of jazz and music education. Conrad said the university's jazz program has always been strong – and is, in fact, one of the first collegiate jazz programs, dating from 1951.
"We have three big bands every year, five or six jazz combos, a full slate of jazz course offerings, really good students," Conrad said, noting many students write their own music. He also teaches a jazz arranging course and works one-on-one with student composers.
"I think my current job is a great balance," he said of teaching and performing, and the educator/musician is currently embarking on a tour to promote his new recording.
"It's expected of you, at the teaching level, to be productive and be out there doing things professionally that reflect well on the university," he said. "Getting to mentor these young musicians is really rewarding. It seems like Iowa kids are very hard-working and conscientious. They seem to enjoy the challenge. A lot of them are self-motivated, which I was at their age, too."
In addition to joining a UNI jazz band on a tour of South Africa in May 2023, Conrad has been recognized for his arranging and composing with four ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Awards and seven DownBeat Awards, as well as awards and commissions from the Contemporary Music Academy in Beijing, the Bundesjazzorchester of Germany, the West Point Army Jazz Knights, and many other organizations. Conrad’s music has been performed all over the world, including in a 2017 concert by the Metropole Orkest in the Netherlands.
Career highlights include: winning the 2023 Sammy Nestico Award; winning a SONIC Award from the International Society of Arrangers and Composers; collaborating on an hour-long recomposition of Beethoven’s Third Symphony with Stegreif Orchester of Berlin; and releasing recordings with both the Iowa Jazz Composers Orchestra and the Mike Conrad Trio.
While Conrad was at Eastman, a string quartet there was invited to play at the second presidential inauguration of Barack Obama in 2013, and Conrad wrote a piece for them to perform, although he didn't actually attend to see it premiered: a fantasia on the Eastman school song. He also won a national competition in 2014 for jazz arrangers, putting together an octet version of Ellington's "Come Sunday," which he did see performed, and at New York's famed Carnegie Hall.
Reconnect-ing
Conrad's Iowa Composers Jazz Orchestra stemmed from a group he started with a couple friends (members of the group Colossus), having a creative outlet to play their new works. "I enjoyed it so much that when we went our separate ways, we franchised the band and made our own versions of the band," he said. "There were three versions of Colossus at the same time."
The outfit, for which Conrad plays piano, is a 17-piece band that performs music from Iowa writers. He says he really enjoys the energy and sound produced from a big band, even though it takes a lot more work and time to write for that many instruments.
"I also really love writing for specific musicians," Conrad added, noting that Ellington inspired him in that regard. "I read about the way he wrote for particular musicians in his band. He'd imagine their sound and their style. I really try to do that with this band."
Conrad wrote a Fertile Soul Suite that was subsequently recorded, and recently finished a project with Gabriel Espinoza, who teaches at Central College in Pella, Iowa. In addition, Conrad expanded five of his songs for big band and recorded them last fall; the resulting EP Maya Roots was released on June 1.
Conrad has headlined his jazz trio since their first album, Reconnect, in 2022. The other players have been friends for years: Conrad has known bassist Katie Ernst since their days in high-school jazz camp, and has known drummer Cassius Goens III since college. That's why Conrad titled his trio's debut Reconnect, as it allowed him to play with musicians he hadn't connected with in a long time. (Although Ernst can't make the Redstone Room gig, as she is also touring with the indie-folk band Iron & Wine, Moline native Drew Morton is filling in. He and Conrad have known each other even longer than Conrad has known Ernst.)
With the Mike Conrad's Trio second album Pretzel Letters scheduled for a June 28 release, the outfit is playing five dates for the new tour, including at the Iowa City Jazz Festival on July 5 at 2 p.m. They recorded the new CD in Chicago last December and all the compositions are Conrad originals, some of them inspired by childhood memories.
The titular "Pretzel Letters,” for instance, came from memories of after-school snacks: Mike is one of five kids, they'd sit with a five-pound bag of pretzels, and they would gnaw the pretzels to make letters and words.
For his Redstone Room concert, Conrad is having students from North Scott High School open for him with their band Q.C. Standard, an ensemble led by incoming seniors Zach McMann (trombone) and Nathan Anderson (saxophone), the latter of whom attended the UNI summer jazz combo camp. "I was thinking that when I was his age,” said Conrad, “I would have enjoyed an opportunity to open for a professional jazz band.”
The Mike Conrad Trio performs their Redstone Room engagement on June 29 with an opening set by Q.C. Standard, admission to the 7 p.m. concert is $12-15, and more information and tickets are available by calling (563)326-1333 and visiting CommonChordQC.com.
