About Tritone Jazz Camps

Got jazz in your soul…

and an instrument in the closet but no time in your schedule? Tritone Jazz Fantasy Camps might be just what you're looking for.

Tritone Jazz Fantasy Camps are designed for adult players (21 and over) looking to spend a week in a total-immersion jazz playing experience. Ability doesn't matter and we'll make sure you have a great time regardless of your skill level.

Camps Feature:

• instrument and vocal master classes led by monster musician/educators

• small-combo playing, large-ensemble playing, theory and improv classes

• special-topics sessions

• five full days rubbing shoulders with pro jazzers and campers from all over

You've heard of baseball fantasy camps, where amateurs train with Major League teams, sometimes sharing a tin of chewing tobacco with their favorite pro players. Tritone Jazz Fantasy Camps work the same way--without the tobacco.

They offer a week-long opportunity for adult jazz musicians to learn a lot, play a lot, and rub shoulders with professional jazz musicians whom they've only heard on CDs or admired from the balcony.

Our goal is to create an atmosphere of fun, instruction, and enjoyment of jazz and its practitioners.

Please Note:

Tritone jazz camps are a personalized experience. We limit attendance to 60 participants per camp, so some positions fill up fast. When we have enough pianists, bassists, and drummers to fill out our instrumental combos, and enough players to populate our big band(s), we cut off registrations for those positions.

If you’re interested, please don’t hesitate to register sooner rather than later.

A Little History from Tritone Owner Bob DeRosa

Tritone was founded in 1998 by two lifelong jazz educators and a late-to-the-party bassist who knew what he needed in a camp.

Fred Sturm was a legendary trombonist, composer, and arranger. At the time, he was director of jazz and improvised music at the Eastman School of Music, and from 1977 to 1991 he had served as director of Jazz Studies at Lawrence University. He would finish his illustrious career as director of jazz and contemporary music in Lawrence University’s Conservatory.

Jim Doser, a monster saxophonist and lifelong music educator maintained dual teaching and administrative positions at the Eastman School of Music and as director of music in the Penfield, NY school system.

I was a late-starting amateur bassist, trying to make up for lost time.

We focused the curriculum on adult learners. I was 47 at the time, and had been playing bass for only about five years. We figured there were lots of full-grown people like me, wishing to get better by being around pros and other campers pretty much all day and night for an entire week.

We decided to make Tritone an adult-only camp because adults tend to be more comfortable around people their own age rather than around young upstarts who can play circles around them. I know that was true of me.

We built the curriculum to include big-band and combo playing, instrument master classes, jazz theory classes, jam sessions, and always lots of jazz “hangs” with faculty and campers.

We hired a faculty based on the “Tritone Trifecta” — outstanding players, teachers, and human beings whose concern, patience and kindness set them apart from run-of-the-mill great players with lesser teaching or human chops.

And we placed the camps in beautiful locations, far from the madding crowd.

Over the years, the curriculum has grown stronger because of outstanding suggestions from campers who generously tell us how we can make their Tritone experience even better.

Honing our campers’ jazz skills is still foremost in our minds, but fun is what Tritone is all about. Our summer jazz camps are full of people seeking the joy of jazz collaboration.

There have been sad and happy changes along the way. Fred Sturm passed away in 2014, leaving a huge hole in our hearts. The following year, Jim Doser accepted the directorship of the Eastman School’s Institute for Music Advancement, a job that left his summers as full as his other seasons, with no more time available for Tritone.

So now there’s me, along with absolutely outstanding faculty members for every instrument in both camp locations.

I tell people that aside from the wonderful woman I married and the wonderful kids I had, having a hand in building Tritone Jazz Fantasy Camps is my best single life accomplishment, far outstripping anything I’ve ever done in my day gig as a professional marketing writer and consultant.

Please use our Contact form to ask about getting on the waiting list because people’s plans do change. And please think about joining us in the spirit of playing, learning, and laughing — not always in that order.