Album Notes

Steve Schneck has been playing the trumpet and flugelhorn for 40 years. Before attending college, he studied at the Juilliard, Manhattan and Eastman Schools of Music and was a trumpet instuctor at Camp Encore/Coda in Maine. Steve was also a member and the Director of the Cornell University Jazz Ensemble and played with the New York University Jazz Ensemble while attending law school. After moving to Chicago, Steve immediately fell in love with the rich and inviting jazz scene, sitting in regularly with musicians including those with whom his Quartet (initially a Quintet) was formed. During the past few years, Steve created and has been the Director of the Hawthorne Scholastic Academy (elementary school) Jazz Band.

Since its inception in 1990, the Steve Schneck Quartet has been performing at numerous jazz clubs and other venues. In 1994, Lake Shore Jazz of Chicago released the Quartet's first CD, "Together Again." In his liner notes for "Together Again," jazz critic and author Neil Tesser wrote that the recording's "most obvious virtue is the undistracted pleasure [Schneck] takes in formulating his related and lyrically transparent solos.... Schneck's rich, round tone remains his calling card: big and pure but none-the-less malleable, and well suited for his carefully well-ordered solo constructions. "Recordame" presents a perfect example of Schneck's easy going logic, influenced by the clarity of Clifford Brown but perhaps more reminiscent of Chet Baker's ardent simplicity. But there's no percentage in focusing on any one solo here, since each one shows the same degree of uncluttered melodiicism."

"Dedicated To You" is the Steve Schneck Quartet's second CD, released in January 2012. Neil Tesser's liner notes for "Dedicated To You" state that Schneck has “continu[ed] to hone his musical mastery of the trumpet and its larger and mellower cousin, the flugelhorn. And now, he has indeed made another disc, long overdue for ... those who take pleasure in pure and lovely melody, and who treasure the deceptively simple art of carving lapidary gems from the raw materials supplied by the endlessly generous Great American Songbook.”

All of the other members of the Steve Schneck Quartet are highly accomplished musicians, recording and performing throughout Chicago and beyond. Among other things, Scott Mason (bass) and Neal Alger (guitar) are on the faculty at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University; Dave Onderdonk (guitar) teaches at the Interlochen summer Jazz Studies Program and at the Elmhurst Music Academy; and Charlie Braugham (drums) and Rusty Jones (drums) are among the most widely sought after jazz drummers in Chicago.