Ed Neumeister is a Grammy-nominated composer, arranger and trombonist, and alumnus of the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra (later Vanguard Jazz Orchestra), and Duke Ellington Orchestra. Neumeister has collaborated with Bob Brookmeyer, Jim McNeely, Joe Lovano, Jerry Garcia, Jay Clayton, Fritz Pauer, Billy Drewes, Rich Perry, Dick Oatts, Kenny Werner, and John Hollenbeck among countless others. His arrangement of “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” from the Mew Lewis Jazz Orchestra’s 1991 album To You: A Tribute to Mel Lewis was nominated for the Grammy for Best Arrangement. Neumeister is a musician’s musician, as his elders and peers are glad to tell you. Bob Brookmeyer hailed him early on as “a gifted improviser,” while Manny Albam extolled him as “the perfect mixture as a musician. He knows Ellington as well as Bartok.” Jim McNeely has said about Neumeister: “Whenever I play a gig with Ed, I know the music will be interesting. By the end of the evening, I will have asked myself a couple dozen times: ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’” Long a devoted educator, Neumeister currently teaches composition at the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music at The New School; New York University; William Paterson University; and City College of New York.