David Chevan is a rare individual in the music world. An active bassistand composer, he is involved in some of the most dynamic and musically exciting jazz projects in Southern Connecticut. In addition to his busy performance schedule, Chevan also holds a Ph.D. in jazz history and is a full-time professor of music at Southern Connecticut State University. His researchon early jazz has radically altered the views of many colleagues--his discovery that certain copyright deposits by Louis Armstrong contained hitherto unheard music as well as a fully notated solo that had always been assumed to be an improvisation briefly created a controversy (for those interested in learning more about this see Chapter 6 of David's dissertation, "Written Music in Early Jazz"). Chevan's current research projects include a comprehensive study and index of Jazz Fake Books and a study of the walking and solo styles of bassist Milt Hinton. Chevan's life as simultaneous academic, performer, and composer allows him to incorporate elementsof each of these worlds into the others. As a result, he is in the position tooffer students and audiences something unique: both academic and practical knowledge.

Born in Philadelphia in 1960, Chevan spent most of his childhood in Amherst, Massachusetts where he experimented with electronic tape loops, listenedto punk rock music and played bass at every opportunity: with polka bands,rock bands, blues bands and jazz groups. In 1981, after several years ofputting college on hold and devoting himself entirely to practice and performance, Chevan bought a double bass. Practicing as much as eight hours a day, Chevan quickly mastered his new instrument and decided to relocate toNew York. After a successful audition to study with John Deak, assistant principal bassist of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Chevan enrolledat the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College.

But classical studies were not meant to be. While studying at the Jazzmobile program in Harlem, Chevan met jazz bassist Lisle Atkinson, whose teaching methods and conceptual approach to the instrument appealed to Chevan. It was around the same time that Chevan married his college sweetheart and enrolled in the doctoral program at the City University of New York. For the next decade Chevan found himself in classrooms and libraries by dayand in nightclubs and catering halls in the later hours. He continued to compose new music and had the opportunity to perform with a wide variety of musicians including, Jerome Harris, Andy Laster, David Bindman, Kevin Norton, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Milt Hinton.

In 1986 Chevan founded BAR NONE, a Brooklyn performance-art space featuring improvised music, dance and poetry, often simultaneously. 1990 broughtthe birth of his first child, which in turn signaled the need for a change. That change came in 1993, when Chevan was hired by Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven to teach music and develop a music major. The Music Major, which took five years to create, only recently made it through the final stages of approval and in 1999 SCSU celebrated the first students to graduate with a Bachelor's degree in Music. In the interim periodwhile waiting for the major to come to fruition, Chevan devoted his effortsto the creation of six new courses and the revitalization of what was a near-defunct orchestra, now renamed the SCSU Creative Music Orchestra.The ensemble focuses on improvised, contemporary avant-garde music and presents more concerts on the SCSU campus than do all of the other school ensembles combined. Every spring the Creative Music Orchestra has two specialevents. On Fat Tuesday the orchestra gives a concert of traditional New Orleans music to celebrate Mardi Gras. Following the concert, for the past five years, the orchestra has hosted a composer/improvisor-in-residence. To date, Chevan has arranged for residences by Jaki Byard, Anthony Coleman, Glenn Dickson, Ellery Eskelin, and Andrea Parkins.

Chevan's artistic career has continued to blossom. He leads two of hisown ensembles, BASSOLOGY and THE AFRO-SEMITIC EXPERIENCE, performs in two critically acclaimed duos, and is a free-lance bassist in the New Haven area.

Chevan's band, BASSOLOGY, performs his original compositions along with arrangements of classic jazz compositions and favorite pieces from anumber of traditions. The band has been featured in a number of local New Haven venues and continues to perform at special events. The band has participated in a number of festivals including New Haven's Art on theEdge Festival, the New Haven Streetfest and the New Haven Harborfest, Norwalk's SoNo Arts Festival and a variety of children's concerts, and has released two CDs.

THE AFRO-SEMITIC EXPERIENCE is Chevan's current band project. In someways the development of this band grows out of David's continuing duo workwith Warren Byrd. What distinguishes this band from the duo is not just thesize of the ensemble, but the repertoire around which the group is built. Where David and Warren are performing a repertoire that comes directly fromthe sacred tradition this group plays a much more secular set list. Themusic of this band includes traditional klezmer melodies, bebop, gospel, cantorial songs and African rhythms and melodic lines. The group, according toChevan, is still in its formative stages but is beginning to gel. If everything falls into place the group should be releasing its first CD sometimein 2002.

In 1997, Chevan began giving concerts of sacred music with his friend, pianist Warren Byrd. These concerts, entitled, Avadim Hayinu-Once WeWere Slaves, focus on the Jewish and African-American sacred traditions, andhave been well received by audiences and critics alike. In June 2001 theywere featured artists at the Washington, D.C. Festival of Jewish Music. Their performance was filmed by PBS and concert highlights along with an interview were aired on the PBS show, "Religion and Ethics Newsweekly." Warrenand David have traveled around the Northeast and recently went to Birmingham, Alabama where they gave a concert workshop on their music. They havegiven their concerts in every imaginable venue, churches, synagogues, concert halls, grade schools, high schools and colleges. Their mission is toperform this musical program wherever it is needed and is relevant. To datethey have released two CDs.

David also has an on-going duet collaboration with Emmy award winning pianist Rex Cadwallader. For the past three years Chevan and Cadwallader have given duo concerts and performed along with numerous guest artistsat the Milford Center for the Arts and the Clinton Town Hall as they present their concert series, Intimate Jazz: The Art of Trio. In the springof 2001 Chevan and Cadwallader along with five guest performers-Kris Allen, Jim Fryer, Giacomo Gates, Stacy Phillips, and Sherry Winston--were featuredjazz artists at the International Festival of Arts and Ideas. They have released two CDs, Repartee, a CD of duets and The Art of Trio, a series of trios recordings with five guest performers.