2002 Elkhart Jazz Festival Lifetime Achievement Honoree

The LA Times calls Dr. Shelly Berg “a powerhouse jazz pianist who always swings hard.” Shelly’s latest CD, The Will, spent eight weeks in the Top Ten of the U.S. Jazz Radio Charts. A finalist in the 1988 Great American Jazz Piano Competition, he is the long-time pianist and arranger for trombonist Bill Watrous and musical director for vocalist Carmen Bradford.

Shelly’s composing for television includes ABC’s Fudge, CBS’s A League of Their Own, and HBO’s Dennis Miller Live. He has orchestrated for Kiss, Chicago, Carole King and Richard Marx. Film orchestration work includes Warner Brothers’ Almost Heroes and Three To Tango, Fox’s Men of Honor, and the NBC miniseries The '60s. He has written for the Royal Philharmonic, the American Symphony and orchestras worldwide. Shelly composed the theme song to the 1986 U.S. Olympic Festival, and his orchestrations are called “magnificent … incredible,” by Johnny Mandel.

Shelly is a professor and past chair of Jazz Studies in the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, as well as past president of the International Association of Jazz Educators. He was named 2003 Educator of the Year by the Los Angeles Jazz Society.

Shelly has numerous compositions for jazz ensemble in publication and is the author of The Chop Monster improvisation series and Jazz Improvisation: The Goal-Note Method.

At the Elkhart Jazz Festival, Shelly and his trio (including Randy Drake and Lou Fischer), will present a special Sunday afternoon set titled Mind Over Matter, in which they give the audience a sneak peek into the mind of a jazz improvisationist.

Shelly Berg and his trio are also leading a student Rhythm Section Clinic for the Elkhart Jazz Festival on Saturday morning.