Overview
Trumpeter, composer, and band leader, Paul Merrill, is a proud member of the Upstate New York music tradition. He toured internationally with Phil Woods and Half Pint and nationally with John Brown’s Body. Merrill currently performs with his own quartet, the fusion trio Electrolyte, and the CNY Jazz Orchestra. He has backed up vocalists such as Natalie Cole, Aretha Franklin, Freda Payne, and Frank Sinatra Jr., and performed with such luminaries as Delfeayo Marsalis, Javon Jackson, Johnny Griffin, Tonny Bennett, and Walter White on the festival stage. He has performed in Italy, Norway, France, Germany, Portugal, Jamaica, Spain, and all over the US. Merrill is an associate professor of the practice at Cornell University and faculty at SummerJazz and director at Opus Ithaca Jazz Camp. He is deeply committed to passing music-making traditions of all sorts to the next generation.
Recently returning to his love of microtonal music, Merril performs exclusively on quarter-tone brass instruments, seeking to fuse and expand the harmonic and melodic possibilities of improvised music.
Research Focus
- Performance: jazz
In the news
- Cornell jazz musicians bring home awards from DownBeat Magazine
- Four faculty receive 2024 Carpenter Advising Awards
- Big Red Icon aims to unite, celebrate student musicians
- Students reflect on Marsalis visit: ‘He really touched my soul’
- Silver linings: Innovation, kits, tech animate a hybrid semester
- Cornell community honors Toni Morrison with “The Bluest Eye” reading
- Instrumental music faculty get creative in light of pandemic
- Six stories of six weeks of virtual learning
- Faculty mobilize to provide virtual instruction
- Free events feature music, speakers, performing artists
- Chimes peal out undergrad melodies
- The Hill is alive with the sound of (jazz) music
- Students, faculty reflect on lessons from Wynton Marsalis' visit
- Jazz Legend Wynton Marsalis in concert with Cornell ensembles March 28
- Students re-create music, vibe from jazz's earliest days
