Dana Landry: DownBeat Honor for Achievement in Jazz Education

By Terry Perkins I Dec. 30, 2025

“There’s a real feeling of community and family among our jazz faculty and the students here at Northern Colorado,” says Dana Landry.
(Photo: Thomas “Woody” Myers)

Dana Landry’s dedicated efforts to build highly successful jazz studies programs at both Middle Tennessee State University and the University of Northern Colorado over the past three decades has earned him a well-deserved 2025 DownBeat Achievement Award for Jazz Education. After all, under Landry’s leadership, the UNC jazz department has earned 95 DownBeat Magazine Student Music Awards.

In addition to his work as an educator, Landry has an impressive musical resume. He has played piano with Ingrid Jensen, Milt Jackson, Béla Fleck, Jeff Coffin, Eddie Daniels, Rufus Reid, Bill Watrous, Billy Pierce, Lew Tabackin, David Liebman and Slide Hampton, among others. He’s recorded several albums as a leader and appeared on more than a dozen other releases. Landry also enjoys playing classical music. He’s performed often with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, and recently returned from Brazil, where he played Rhapsody In Blue with an orchestra in Natal.

Landry’s achievements as a jazz educator as well as his diverse musical interests are rooted in his early years in Bangor, Pennsylvania. His parents were both educators, and his father was also a jazz drummer.

“My parents were both great teachers,” Landry recalls. “They were always searching for ways to inspire their students. My grandmother was the secretary of the local Lutheran church, and after school I’d wait at the church for her to get off work. I’d go to the auditorium, play piano, then write on the blackboard — pretending I was teaching. So, I guess it was in my blood.”

Bangor, was near the Delaware Water Gap, and Landry’s dad would often take him to the famed Deer Head Inn to hear jazz musicians such as the club’s regular pianist, John Coates, as well as touring jazz musicians. And as Landry grew older, he would accompany his father to jazz clubs in New York and Philadelphia where his dad was performing.

“My father went back and forth in his career between focusing on music while working toward a doctorate, and teaching high school while doing occasional gigs,” recalls Landry. “Eventually he got his degree, began teaching at Utah State, and we moved to Logan, where I graduated from high school, then enrolled at Berklee College of Music.

“At Berklee, I started majoring in performance, but I took a music business class taught by Gary Burton and that really inspired me to learn more about that. I ended up getting a degree in Professional Music. I also took a class on improvisation from Gary, and in 2005, he played on my first album, Journey Home.”

After graduation, Landry decided to study for a master’s degree at the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley.

“My father and I had driven through Greeley one summer while I was going to Berklee, and I was really drawn to the idea of going there to do graduate study at UNC,” he recalls. “I didn’t even apply anywhere else. I likely would have stayed in the area after I got my master’s, but I got a call from James Williams. I had gone to hear him at the Willow jazz club in Boston before I even started classes at Berklee. I had already been listening to his album, Arioso. We became close friends and kept in touch. His phone call let me know there was a late search for a teaching job at Middle Tennessee State University, and he encouraged me to apply. I did, and a got a one-year contract in 1995, applied for tenure track and became director of jazz studies there.”

“Working with my colleagues, we were able to put a curriculum together and create a bachelor’s degree in jazz studies and eventually create the curriculum for a master’s in jazz studies as well. I was there for seven years, and it was great to be able to play in clubs in nearby Nashville with Victor Wooten, Béla Fleck, Jeff Coffin and other great musicians.”

In 2002, Gene Aitken, who later would be named to DownBeat’s Jazz Educator Hall of Fame in 2007, announced he would be retiring as director of jazz studies at the University of Northern Colorado.

“I got the position, and I’ve been at UNC since 2002,” Landry says. “The first thing I wanted to do was start an official jazz studies program.”

In two short years the curriculum was built and the school offered both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in jazz studies.

“We now have a talented full-time jazz faculty,” he explains. “And with adjunct faculty, including the great Marian Powers teaching vocal jazz, we can now offer a doctorate degree. We have 32 doctoral students and 120 jazz majors — and it’s growing every year.”

Landry and his colleagues also designed a curriculum for a LatinX program master’s degree that started in 2023.

“I’ve been incredibly fortunate to be surrounded by colleagues whose unwavering commitment to student success has been a constant source of inspiration,” says Landry. The greatest reward has been working with students who not only love music — but also have the curiosity, discipline and drive it takes to grow as artists and people.” DB