Originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Dante now resides in Miami, Florida where he is the Departmant Coordinator for Studio Music and Jazz Instrumental Studies and Jazz Trombone Professor at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music. He has conducted the award winning Concert Jazz Band from 2001-2012. The CJB has won Downbeat’s prestigious award for “Best College Big Band” in 2006, 2007 and 2010 and was nominated for a Grammy award for a collaboration with arranger/composer Maria Schneider. He has also been a featured artist with the Naples Jazz Philharmonic.
For the past 25 years, Dante was the trombonist with the late Ira Sullivan’s “Inter-Outer Continental Quintet.” He has performed and recorded as lead trombonist/soloist with the Dizzy Gillespie All Star Big Band, the Maynard Ferguson Big Bop Nouveau Band, the Arturo Sandoval, Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd, Dizzy Gillespie, Slide Hampton, Michael Brecker, Bob Mintzer, Nat Adderly, James Moody, Micky Roker, Shirley Scott, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Elvis Costello, Paul Anka, Frank Sinatra Sr., Frank Sinatra Junior, Gloria Estefan, the South Florida Jazz Orchestra and many others.
As a trombone soloist, Dante toured with Janusz Szprot and his “Young at Heart” band and has also performs regularly in Istanbul, Turkey at the Nardis Jazz Club. He was twice featured as a soloist for the ” Salsa Meets Jazz” series at the Arturo Sandoval Jazz Club in Miami, Florida, and was the featured artist with the Polish jazz trumpeter Piotr Schmidt’s recording “Black Monolith.”
Recent Latin Grammy winning recordings include sessions for Ed Calle’s “Mamblue” big band, as well as Arturo Sandoval’s CD entitled “Rhumba Palace”. Others include P Diddy’s release “Bad Boyz”, solo work for vocalist Paula Doyler’s project entitled “Over and Over”, “Trumpet Summit” with the South Florida Jazz Orchestra, the Frank Derrick big band, the Stephen Guerra big band, and most recently the “14 Jazz Orchestra” under the direction of arranger Dan Bonsanti.
In April of 2019, Dante contributed his talents as Lead Trombonist and soloist for Jazz Trumpeter Brian Lynch’s Big Band Recording, “The Omni American Songbook” which was the winner of the 2020 Grammy award for Best Big Band Recording.
Dante is a regular clinician/performer at the Pulawy Summer Jazz Workshop in Pulawy, Poland and the Zywiec Trombone Festival in Zywiec, Poland.
Dante Luciani 