• Director of Jazz Studies

Director of Jazz Studies

Don Bailey is an Associate Professor of Music and the Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith. He joined the teaching staff in 1985. His teaching duties include classes in music theory, music education, music appreciation, jazz improvisation, jazz history, jazz theory, and applied woodwinds. He directs the university’s jazz band, which has performed to sell out crowds for nearly 2 decades. He is also active as a clinician throughout Arkansas and Oklahoma, where his jazz improvisation workshops are quite popular.

A native of New Jersey, Don received his formative music education performing as a freelance musician in New York and his home state. He earned his Bachelor of Music Education degree from Iowa Wesleyan College and his Master of Arts in Music degree from the University of Northern Iowa, where he was a teaching assistant in jazz studies.

In 1987 Don was one of three instructors honored with the Excellence in Teaching Award at Westark. In 1989, he received the National Teaching Excellence Award in a study conducted by the University of Texas at Austin. He received the prestigious “Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers” Award in 1998, 2002, 2004, and again in 2005.

Don served two terms as president of the Arkansas Unit of the International Association of Jazz Educators and has represented the state at regional and national jazz events. He has performed with the Temptations, the Four Tops, both the Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey Orchestras, Dizzy Gillespie, Steve Allen, Lucie Arnaz, the New York Voices, Tommy Newsom, Marvin Hamlisch, Phil Driscoll, and many more nationally acclaimed artists. He has also “opened” for Clay Cross and Randy Travis.

Don is the president and co-founder of New Song Publishing Company, and is on the teaching staff of the International Worship Institute in Dallas (summer workshops). He is also a songwriter and worship leader at Community Bible Church in Fort Smith.