As the Director of Jazz and Commercial Music Studies, Assistant Professor Remy Le Boeuf is reshaping the jazz program at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music with an eye toward the future.
Le Boeuf is originally from Santa Cruz, Calif., where he grew up playing music with his twin brother, Pascal Le Boeuf. Le Boeuf and his brother got more serious about composition as they entered high school. “Pascal was a big inspiration to me, and as a piano player he had a better understanding of harmony that time and got started composing first,” said Le Boeuf. Alongside his brother, Le Boeuf attended the Manhattan School of Music, where he honed in on his passion for saxophone and jazz orchestra.
“I especially loved listening to the music of Charles Mingus when I first got into jazz,” said Le Boeuf. “His writing still inspires me.”
Most of his professional life was spent in New York. “I originally became acquainted with the faculty when they commissioned me to write something,” Le Boeuf said. Shortly after, he was invited to apply for an open position at the University.
Collaboration lies at the heart of Le Boeuf’s creative endeavors, as evidenced by his work with a diverse array of artists, including the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Linda Oh, HAIM and the JACK Quartet, among others. Notably, he shares a musical partnership with his identical twin brother, co-leading the jazz quintet, Le Boeuf Brothers.
Le Boeuf brings a contemporary sensibility honed from his professional experience in New York’s modern jazz scene. “I designed the program here to be a little more genre-merging,” said Le Boeuf. “When I came here it seemed like the program was very focused on bebop and post-bebop eras.” Since then, Le Boeuf has tried to modernize it—“to make it more relevant to students who are graduating from the program today, to set them up for the professional world,” he said.
To help his students learn, Le Boeuf and the Lamont faculty have hired some other musicians, composers and educators in the Denver community to further this revamp of the curriculum. Annie Booth, a Colorado local, started as a composition professor around the same time as Le Boeuf. “It’s fun working with her because she has a lot of relationships within this community and I am kind of a newcomer,” Le Boeuf said.
“We want to support our students beyond graduation,” Le Boeuf said. In support of this, Le Boeuf and the Lamont school of Music commissioned DU alumni Collin Holter to create a new work for current students to perform. “He is pursuing a career as a performer and composer so we want to support him and help him support our students and keep this community going even after graduation,” Le Boeuf said.
Le Boeuf has earned many accolades such as four Grammy nominations for his work with his jazz orchestra Assembly of Shadows, the ensemble he is most known for. However, he humbly stays grounded: “Awards are just awards, they don’t inform anything,” Le Boeuf said. He remains focused on reshaping Lamont’s program and nurturing students’ artistic journeys above chasing validation.
Le Boeuf also continues pursuing his own recording projects, with a new album “Heartman Radio” debuting March 15.
“It’s about my move across the country from New York to Denver,” Le Boeuf explained. He will celebrate its CD release with a concert at Dazzle, a downtown Denver jazz club on March 9. Le Beouf is flying out some “special people” from New York, but will also be joined by some local Denver collaborators. “We’re doing the CD release in New York, a CD release here [Denver] and I’m traveling all over the world booking various big bands performing music from this project,” Le Boeuf said.
Since moving to Denver, Le Bouef has gotten the opportunity to work with a diverse group of musicians and ensembles, including the Colorado Jazz repertory orchestra. “I perform with the people in the community in Denver and that shapes the music I create and the collaborations that I have,” Le Bouef said.
With support for both students and his own creative endeavors, Le Boeuf has found an ideal home at Lamont to shape the next generation of jazz artists. “Everything you do is practice,” he advises students. “Focus on the process and don’t look for shortcuts.”
Le Boeuf looks at everything in life as practice. “If you’re scrolling on Instagram for three hours, that is the info you are internalizing, and those are the skills you are developing. If you’re practicing your instrument you are internalizing those skills. If you’re practicing your instrument while distracted, then you’re absorbing less,” Le Boeuf said.
Remy Le Boeuf’s impact extends far beyond the classroom, shaping the future of jazz and inspiring generations of musicians to embrace creativity, collaboration and the pursuit of excellence.
