Jazz and the American Spirit featuring the Flying Horse Big Band

Jeff Rupert, director

The Flying Horse Big Band is one of the premiere performing ensembles of the UCF Music Department. It has appeared at the Montreux, Switzerland, and the North Sea Jazz Festivals, as well as numerous festival and concert appearances domestically. The band has featured Randy Brecker, Bob Berg, Michael Mossman, James Moody, Nick Brignola, Harry Allen, Steve Turre, Rodney Holmes, Terry Gibbs, Marvin Stamm, Mulgrew Miller, John Swana, Kevin Mahogany, Lou Donaldson and Eric Alexander with the band. In 2005 the Flying Horse Big Band premiered  Sam Rivers’ work for double big band, with Rivers’ RIVBEA orchestra. The group has had six recordings  on the national jazz charts.  Recordings include Jazz Town, The Blues is Alright, Into the Mystic, Big Man on Campus,The Bat Swings! And most recently  Florida Rays. The last two albums climbed to #1 on the national (professional) jazz charts.  

Former members of the band include musicians now performing on the Grammy’s and various television shows in Los Angeles, New York and Nashville. Several others are now professors at universities around the country. The Flying Horse Big Band recordings can be found at Flyinghorserecords.com.  

Jeff Rupert has recorded over 100 albums, and has recorded and toured with jazz singers Diane Schuur, Mel Tormé, Kevin Mahogany, Veronica Swift, T-Bone, and Ernestine Anderson. He is a featured soloist on Benny Carter’s Grammy winning Harlem Renaissance. Rupert toured for 15 years with Sam Rivers; 4 albums ensued. From 1997- 2002 he toured and recorded with Maynard Ferguson. Jeff Rupert’s 11 recordings as a leader all charted on Jazz Week. Let’s Sail Away reached #1. Jeff Rupert is Pegasus  Distinguished Professor, Trustee Endowed Chair, and Director of Jazz Studies at UCF, and founder of Flying Horse Records. For twenty seven years Rupert has directed UCF’s Flying Horse Big Band, which has released 6 big band albums. The Bat Swings!, music from the 60’s T.V Show, Batman charted on RMR, JazzWeek, and NACC, and was the #1 album of the week in the U.S. on two of these charts, simultaneously. The band’s latest release Good News! was #1 on the jazz charts this past fall.  Rupert’s most recent solo album The Ripple with tenor saxophonist George Garzone, Marty Morell, Richard Drexler and Jeremy Allen was the #5 album of 2020 on Jazz Week. Jeff Rupert is a YAMAHA performing artist. 

 “Once in a while an album comes out that reminds us how the tenor saxophone is supposed to sound”  
– Jazz Times

 “From the moment I first heard Jeff Rupert with my band I considered him one of the great jazz players of today.”
– Maynard Ferguson

“Rupert is just the kind of soloist needed to spur a band on to heroic heights.”
– George Kanzler, music critic, The Star Ledger

“Jeff Rupert has a classic tenor sound, the virtuosity to execute practically any musical idea, and the imagination to make those ideas worth hearing.”
– Ed Berger, the Institute of Jazz Studies