Ted Moore creates the UC Jazz Club to infuse his organization with community spirit and to share his students' talent with the Bay Area Community!
Ted Moore
Mr. Moore is Director of UC Jazz Ensembles at UC Berkeley. Aside from his administrative duties, he offers his skills as the Percussion Director of UC Jazz Ensembles Advanced Combo II and the Improv Workshop.
A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Ted Moore has toured the world with Paul Winter, Marian McPartland, Stan Getz, Joe Williams, Eric Gale, Jack Wilkins, Gene Bertonzini, Joey DeFrancesco, and many others. For several years, he lived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, performing timpani and percussion with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, as well as touring and recording with one of Brazil's leading saxophonists, Victor Assis Brasil. Mr. Moore has composed original scores for several films and television series, including the NOVA science series on PBS.
Since graduating from the Eastman School of Music, Ted has pursued a career which has taken him to many parts of the world with many different artists. He is leader and composer for his own Brazilian jazz group, Brasilia, which has released its first CD to national acclaim.
On tour, Ted has performed throughout the US and Canada, as well as Japan, Spain, England and Holland. He has played in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Cathedral of St. John in New York, Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and Suntory Hall in Tokyo.
In the News
Listen to Brasilia on JazzWest.com while learning about Ted Moore which provide the best in-depth news about Bay Area Jazz since 1999. http://www.jazzwest.com/directory/members/brasilia.html
June 4-13, 2010 Brasilia, with Ted Moore and Pamela Driggs to perform at Healdsburg Jazz Festival
“Pamela’s voice is a remarkable instrument, defining the bittersweet edge of the Brazilian style with deft perfection.”
—Jazziz
When vocalist Pamela Driggs fell in love with Brazilian music, she decided to go right to the source, Salvador, the capital of Bahia, the state known as the heart of Afro-Brazilian culture. After honing her command of Portuguese and deepening her knowledge of Brazil’s countless melodies and rhythms, she returned to the States and founded the Brazilian jazz group Brasilia with composer/drummer Ted Moore, who followed a similar path.
Now director of UC Berkeley’s Jazz Department, Moore lived in Rio for two years, serving as percussionist with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra while also performing with many top-flight Brazilian jazz artists. Joining forces with Driggs, they released “River Wide” (Kokopelli), which received rapturous critical praise. Driggs made her solo debut with 2000’s “Midnight Sun” (Aosis), a buoyant session featuring American standards, Brazilian classics, pop originals and bossa nova gems. She recorded her Aosis follow up, 2002’s “Itacuruçá,” in Rio with the city’s best jazz musicians.
Over the past decade she’s performed and recorded with a stellar roster of artists, including Sadao Watanabe, Herbie Mann, Nana Vasconcelos, Cesar Camargo Mariano, and Cyro Baptista. The latest incarnation of Brasilia includes bassist Gary Brown, who’s toured and recorded extensively with Flora Purim and Airto, and Driggs’ husband Romero Lubambo, the remarkable Brazilian jazz guitarist sought after by vocalists such as Dianne Reeves, Leny Andrade, Jane Monheit, and Luciana Souza for his consummate skills as an accompanist.
May 27, 2010 - Ted Moore inducted inthe Arts Hall of Fame of his Alma Mater.
TED MOORE – SHS Graduate 1969
After a successful high school career in the instrumental program, Ted Moore chose the path of performance. Since graduating from the Eastman School of Music, Ted has pursued a career which has taken him to many parts of the world performing with many different artists. He is leader and composer for his own Brazilian jazz group, Brasilia, which has released its first CD to national acclaim. He has performed with Stan Getz, Paul Winter, Marian McPartland, Eric Gale, Jack Wilkins, Gene Bertoncini and Joey DeFrancesco. On tour, Ted has performed throughout the U.S. and Canada, as well as Japan, Spain, England and Holland. He has spent two years living in Rio de Janeiro as percussionist with the Brazilian Orchestra and performing with many well known Brazilian jazz artists. He has played in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Cathedral of St. John in New York, Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. He is presently on the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley teaching percussion and Director of Jazz Ensembles. More
Friday, March 06, 2009 at 12:50 pm Studio 104 Band Debuts in Free Concert Drummer and UC Berkeley Jazz Director Ted Moore checks in with news of a free upcoming performance spotlighting some of the university's talented jazz faculty. The concert, reports Moore, will include many of his original compositions, all being performed for the first time. Along with Moore (behind the drum kit), the concert features Dan Zinn (saxophone), Frank Martin (keyboards), and special guest Kai Eckhardt (bass). They're calling themselves the Studio 104 Band for the occasion.
Alex Henderson, All Music Guide "When Herbie Mann launched his Kokopelli label in the early 1990s, one could safely assume that the veteran flutist would put out a few Brazilian recordings; after all, he'd been interested in Brazilian music since the '50s. One of the Brazilian pop-jazz releases that Kokopelli put out was River Wide by Brasilia, a group that united Brazilian musicians Café (percussion) and Romero Lubambo (acoustic guitar) with Americans Pamela Driggs (vocals), Phil Markowitz (piano), Phil Strange (piano), Jerry Watts (bass), and Ted Moore (a drummer and the CD's producer). An expressive and charming singer, Driggs often sounds like she could be Brazilian -- she sings as convincingly in Portuguese as she does in English, and she has clearly mastered the art of Brazilian-style scat singing. But in fact, she's an American who grew up in Nevada. Essentially, Brasilia favors a Rio de Janeiro-like approach to the samba -- think of Flora Purim, Dori Caymmi, Gal Costa, Tania Maria, and Ana Caram. But on Caymmi's "Voce Ja Foi a Bahia?," Brasilia happily acknowledges the influence of Afro-Bahian music on Rio's innovators. Not outstanding but certainly enjoyable, River Wide is worth searching for."
Ted Moore's Brasilia and the Oregon Symphony. In February 2007, Director of UC Jazz, Ted Moore, once again performed his arrangements for small group and symphony orchestra, this time with the Oregon Symphony in Portland.
The concert featured his group, Brasilia, including Phil Markowitz on piano and Romero Lubambo on guitar. This follows last season's appearances with the Rochester Philharmonic and the Vancouver Symphony.
[Ted] Moore's originals speak the bossa dialect more authentically than the compositions of perhaps any other non-Brazilian." — Mark Holston, JazzIz magazine
"[Ted] Moore's writing is true to bossa nova standards in its relentless melodicism and unexpected chord progressions. Driggs' vocals effortlessly find the balance between strength and femininity." Jazz Southwest magazine
"Pamela Driggs is one of the best new voices in jazz." — Herbie Mann "One of the freshest and most exciting releases of the year celebrates the musical traditions of Brazil in thoroughly captivating style... Brasilia is definitely a band to watch." — JazzTimes magazine
"The affection the members of Brasilia have for the Brazilian genre is evident... some of the most sensitive and resourceful practitioners of the music to come along in years." — Mark Holston, JazzIz magazine
"This impressive band remains faithful to the highest standards of Brazilian music while delivering an ear-catching personality all their own -- a difficult feat and one that merits much attention in an era of luke-warm Latin sounds." — Dave McElfresh, JazzNow magazine
"A cohesive program of exuberant rhythms and seductive melodies... that evolves with an uncommon blend of logic and emotion. Pamela's voice is a remarkable instrument, defining the bittersweet edge of the Brazilian style with deft perfection and a natural ease that's totally disarming." — Mark Holston, JazzIz magazine
"Singer [Pam] Driggs does remind the listener of some of the best chanteuses in the bossa nova movement." — Phoenix New Times