DON ZENTZ recently retired after 41 years of teaching instrumental music at all levels in education. He finished his career as the Director of Jazz Studies at the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts (high school in Jacksonville, FL).
Don has long been recognized as a leader in the area of jazz education since being hired onto the jazz faculty at the University of North Florida in 1990 by program founder Rich Matteson. His jazz ensembles have performed at national conferences that include The Midwest Clinic, Jazz Education Network, Western International Band Clinic, and the International Association of Jazz Educators. Under his direction, the UNF Jazz Ensemble won the National Collegiate Jazz Festival, took top honors at the Notre Dame Jazz Festival, and appeared on the international stage for the first time at the major jazz festivals in Europe.
His high school and collegiate jazz ensembles have received eleven DownBeat Student Music Award citations. Over the past nine years at Douglas Anderson, Don’s top jazz ensemble won the 2022 & 2023 National Jazz Festival (jazz ensemble and combo divisions), 2021 Basically Basie Heritage Festival, and 2017 Swing Central national jazz band competitions. The fifty plus guest artists that have performed with Don’s jazz bands over the years truly reads like a “who’s who” in jazz. These legends include Herbie Hancock, Arturo Sandoval, Terry Gibbs, Ellis Marsalis, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Eddie Daniels, Joe Lovano, Ernie Watts, and Maria Schneider.
Don enjoys much activity as a clinician, adjudicator, and performer in both traditional and jazz idioms. He has directed the All-State Jazz Bands of Florida, Ohio, Georgia, Alabama, and Maine along with the Delaware All-State Symphonic Band. Don’s All-District/All-County honor band directing over his career is extensive. He served on the Jazz Committee of the Florida Bandmasters Association and leads the jazz adjudication recertification sessions twice per year. He has been an FBA adjudicator for over thirty years and also adjudicates for Festival Disney and Music USA.
Don was a per service saxophonist with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra for over twenty years and remains a top call player throughout the southeastern United States, playing many of the off-Broadway musicals that come into Florida. He has been a Keilwerth Saxophones performing artist since 1995. Throughout the 1990’s, Don was a member of the southeastern unit of The Fabulous Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, playing lead alto saxophone.
He served two terms as president of the Florida Unit of IAJE and was responsible for creating and implementing the State Jazz Workshop. UNF named Don an Outstanding Professor in 1996 and DownBeat Magazine awarded him their Jazz Education Achievement Award in 1999. Don also joined a select group of Jacksonville area jazz legends by being named the 2022 inductee into the Jacksonville Jazz Festival Hall of Fame. That same year, the National Jazz Festival selected him for their Jazz Educator of the Year Award. The Jazz Education Network presented Don with their 2024 John LaPorta Jazz Educator Award, sponsored by the Berklee School of Music, in recognition of his professional standard of excellence, expertise, musicianship, and a career centered on student achievement at the highest level. Also in 2024, The Midwest Clinic elected Don to their Board of Directors.
Don and his wife Laurie have been married for forty years. They met in college at Valdosta State University (Georgia). Laurie recently retired as a middle school band director and was the 2016 St. Johns County Teacher of the Year who went on to be named a top five semi-finalist for Florida Teacher of the Year. They have two daughters, Danielle and Andrea. Both are teachers. Teaching is the Zentz family business!
