One of the great joys of Paris’ life was being with people and helping them grow as musicians, whether writers, players, or singers. Paris felt that his writing for publication continued that outreach after his retirement from teaching, and indeed, that legacy continues today.

A little bit about Paris …

Paris’ musical life began at age 4 with piano lessons from his mother. From there, his life quickly expanded to include music at every level and opportunity. As an instrumentalist, Paris played trombone in the Dallas Symphony, dance bands, and countless jingle sessions. As a writer, Paris enjoyed many opportunities to write commercial music for advertising and television networks, and arrangements for big band and symphony.

A stint as a recording engineer led Paris to one of the loves of his life, vocal jazz group singing. Paris started writing for a group of first-call jingle singers, and they had a great time interpreting standards and popular tunes. Travel to Europe for writing opportunities further broadened Paris’ horizons and was an exciting time in his life.

Ready for a new challenge, Paris returned to the states, and began a new career in teaching music at the college level. Starting off at the University of Colorado Denver, Paris taught Jazz performance, jazz theory and arranging, as well as directing a vocal jazz ensemble. In 1978 Paris was hired to teach instrumental arranging and vocal jazz performance at the University of North Texas, (NTSU at that early time). Paris loved his 30 years of teaching at UNT and the opportunity to work with a great faculty and so many incredible and talented students who are now involved in performing, writing and teaching music across the globe.

Paris retired from UNT as a Regents Professor Emeritus in 2009. Not ready to lay down his pencil or let his musical interests wane, he formed a community based vocal jazz ensemble, “The New Collection”. For seven years, this wonderful group enjoyed making music together, performing locally and at music festivals in the U.S.

Paris’ life continued to be full of arranging music for different ensembles and in varying styles. You can find links to published vocal jazz charts in the Vocal Charts sections, and information about the two books he has written in the “books” section.

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