UNLV's Jazz Ensemble I and Latin Jazz Ensemble open the 2026-27 season at 3 p.m. on the reported date—with conflicting date references in the report—with a two-hour album release concert at Ham Hall, pairing student musicians with faculty who spend their nights backing headliners on the Las Vegas Strip. Jazz Ensemble I will feature its new album My Favorite Things, while the Latin Jazz Ensemble showcases its current release, Back Home.
The concert, reported by Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John Katsilometes, brings together two ensembles built on a decades-long pipeline between UNLV's classrooms and the entertainment industry. Tickets run $11.75 in person at the UNLV box office or $14.25 through unlv.edu, according to the same report.
Leading Jazz Ensemble I is Dave Loeb, UNLV's director of jazz studies, who told the Review-Journal that students are “pushed into the professional world as soon as possible.” Loeb holds the David Mulkey MD and Laura Taylor Mulkey Endowed Chair of Jazz and Commercial Music, and he regularly commutes to Los Angeles to record piano for animated series including Family Guy and American Dad, according to West Chester University. He has also conducted live casino show orchestras on the Strip while teaching at UNLV, the same source notes.
A Drummer's Quarter-Century on the Strip
The Latin Jazz Ensemble is led by drummer Jose “Pepe” Jimenez, who has performed in Las Vegas for 25 years, per the Review-Journal. Jimenez joined the Strip production Storm at Mandalay Bay in April 2001 before leaving in 2002, and he went on to play in the bands for The Lion King and Mamma Mia! at Mandalay Bay as well as Baz at the Palazzo Theater and Zumanity at New York-New York, the outlet reports.
Jimenez has also backed Carlos Santana for two years, along with Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, and Paul Shaffer & the Shaff-Shifters, according to the Review-Journal's account. He started teaching drums at UNLV in 2018 and has taught there since then, taking over the Latin Jazz Ensemble in 2021. That ensemble was originally re-established in 2009 by German-American pianist Uli Geissendoerfer, who relocated to Las Vegas to serve as bandleader for Cirque du Soleil's Viva Elvis, according to a post from the UNLV Division of Jazz & Commercial Music; the ensemble won four DownBeat awards under Geissendoerfer's direction, the same post notes.
Jimenez told the Review-Journal that the student ensemble aims to match the caliber of Strip productions, and he said first-time attendees often tell him they were not expecting the show they got. This summer, in August, the Latin Jazz Ensemble performed at Adelaide's Jazz Festival in Australia in collaboration with Adelaide University, the paper reports.
Faculty With National and Grammy Credentials
Also featured Sunday is assistant professor and assistant director Adam Schroeder, who received the Nevada System of Higher Education's 2023 Regents' Award for Creative Activities and previously won a 2021 Grammy Award as a baritone saxophonist in John Beasley's MONK'estra, according to UNLV News Center. Schroeder has also been named a Rising Star baritone saxophonist in multiple DownBeat Critics Polls, the university notes.
The bill also includes performers Andres Montero and Eduardo Montero, along with the Joe Williams Scholarship Quintet, named for the jazz vocalist who established the Joe Williams Every Day Foundation before his 1999 death to support college jazz musicians, including an annual scholarship program at UNLV, according to the UNLV School of Music. Williams rose to national stardom in 1955 singing “Every Day I Have the Blues” with the Count Basie Orchestra, the school notes. Nathan Tanouye, a member of Santa Fe & the Fat City Horns who has backed Celine Dion and Lady Gaga, will not perform at this particular concert, as he is committed to the Las Vegas Philharmonic's celebration of composer Joe Hisaishi, per the Review-Journal.
A National Pipeline Built on Blind Judging
UNLV musicians have won 53 DownBeat awards, according to the Review-Journal, a tally that reflects the program's standing in one of jazz education's most competitive contests. DownBeat Magazine's Student Music Awards, established in 1976, evaluate hundreds of national entries across 15 categories through blind judging, with recordings identified only by encoded numbers, according to the UNLV News Center. The university reports that UNLV's jazz program has received 53 of those awards.
UNLV Jazz Studies alumni have gone on to perform with Aretha Franklin, Jennifer Hudson, Barbra Streisand, Natalie Cole, Tony Bennett, Andrea Bocelli, Usher, Jennifer Lopez, The Who, Lady Gaga, Celine Dion, Shania Twain, Adele, Michael Bublé, Donny and Marie Osmond, and Nas, according to the Review-Journal. Schroeder has also performed with the Count Basie Orchestra, according to the UNLV School of Music, and alumni have toured with pop stars such as Bette Midler, Chicago, and Lionel Richie, the school notes. Jazz Ensemble I itself has toured internationally across Europe and Asia and has performed at New York City's Village Vanguard and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
Nevada's Only Dedicated Symphony Hall
Sunday's concert takes place inside Ham Concert Hall, a UNLV venue.
According to the Review-Journal, UNLV's teachers are themselves active musicians on the Strip, and the program can match any major college in the country. For Sunday's audience, that means a rare chance to hear student musicians share a stage with faculty whose resumes run through Cirque du Soleil productions, Grammy-winning studio sessions, and decades of Strip headliner tours.
