Galen Jeter - Trumpet, Galen is a graduate of the University of North Texas, and was active in the Lab Band program for six years, including three years with the One O'Clock. As Mr. Leon Breedon says, “He went from the very last band to the One O’clock, receiving the first standing ovation ever awarded a student at North Texas.
Jazz fans throughout the metroplex have enjoyed the
exciting sounds of the big bands of Galen Jeter for over three and a half
decades. Even though Galen's Master of Science degree has served him well as a
public school educator in the Garland ISD, he has also found time to devote much
of his time in continuing to foster the big band sound he had learned at UNT.
After a brief stint with the Woody Herman band, BJ Thomas, and Gladys Knight
and the Pips, he focused his talents on the many opportunities that presented
themselves in the Dallas Metroplex.
In addition to playing with many of the
area big bands in his early years, Galen played with a rock group called Dallas
County and contracted musicians for the Playboy Club, Granny's Dinner theater
and Yorick's Dinner Club. Additionally he has contracted and played behind
many major concert artists.
Without question, his devotion to the sounds of the
big band centered on a young band called the Dallas Jazz Orchestra. From its
first rehearsals at Owens Hall on the SMU campus in mid October of 1973, and
since it’s first performance March 5th 1974 at Jack Murphy’s
“Villager”, jazz fans have flocked to see the band play in such venues as Maxine
Kent's, the Bomb Shelter, Popsicle Toes, Buster's and Poor David's Pub. Since
1990 the DJO and now Dallas’ Original Jazz Orchestra have found a home
entertaining audiences for nearly two decades, some 46 weeks out of the year, at
the Village Country Club.
As the band's reputation has grown
among jazz players nationwide, Galen has welcomed many prominent players into
the group such as John Park of Super Sax and Kenton and Allan Beutler from the
Kenton band. Bill Tillman from Blood Sweat and Tears and Ken Edwards from the
Maynard Ferguson band. Throughout the years, other tremendous players left the
DJO to gain fame in other nationally-known bands. Among those players was
Karolyn Kafer who joined Doc Severinsen and Craig Johnson who
played with Maynard Ferguson, and Joe Jackson who left the band to join and lead
the “Airmen of Note”.
From the DJO's humble beginning, and Dallas’
Original Jazz Orchestra’s continuation, keeping the dream alive, Galen has
skillfully crafted this unit into a top flight performance ensemble, recording
14 CD’s and performing at numerous jazz festivals and jazz cruises nationwide,
plus twice on the world-wide stage at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland
and a performance at the World’s Fair in Seville Spain.