The MJT Project

The MJT Project is a ten-piece modern jazz group consisting of professional jazz musicians, primarily based in Nashville, Tenn. This group presents an exciting new approach to contemporary music. With six low brass instrumentalists and a four-piece rhythm section, the MJT Project builds upon over 50 years of tradition utilizing the euphonium and tuba as lead instruments in jazz.

This tradition started in the late 1940s with "the birth of the cool" and the collaboration between Miles Davis and Bill Barber on a number of recordings arranged by Gil Evans, and was extended through the 1950s by Harvey Phillips (the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, Gil Evans, etc.) and Don Butterfield (Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus and others). By the late 1950s, bands were actually fronted by tubists such as Ray Draper (with "sideman" John Coltrane) and Red Callender.

In the late 1960s, tubist Howard Johnson began his work with the Gil Evans Orchestra and with blues artist Taj Mahal, which led to the formation of the first jazz tuba ensemble, "Gravity," in 1968.

Famous jazz euphoniumist Rich Matteson, along with tubist Harvey Phillips, continued exploring ensemble possibilities through the formation of the internationally acclaimed Matteson-Phillips Tubajazz Consort in the mid-1970s.

The MJT Project is an outgrowth of these traditions. Utilizing the talents of three outstanding jazz euphoniumists ‹ Billy Huber and Barry Green of  Nashville and Marcus Dickman of Jacksonville, Fla. ‹ and balancing the low end with tubists Joe Murphy and Winston Morris of Tennessee and Richard Perry of Hattiesburg, Miss., the MJT Project explores the best in jazz tuba literature. The rhythm section personnel are all first-call Nashville-based musicians who have performed and recorded with just about everybody in the music business. Members include Steve Willets on keys, Paul Binkley on guitar, Tony Nagy on bass and "fast fingers and flying feet" Jeff Lloyd on drums.