Dr. JB Dyas, the 2026 inductee into the prestigious DownBeat Jazz Education Hall of Fame, has been a pioneering force in jazz education for more than three decades. As Vice President for Education and Curriculum Development at the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz at UCLA, he oversees the Institute’s extensive educational and outreach initiatives, including Jazz in America (www.jazzinamerica.org), one of the most influential and far-reaching jazz education programs in the world. He has led jazz workshops, teacher-training seminars, and educational performances (“informances”) around the globe, collaborating with such renowned artists as Ambrose Akinmusire, Don Braden, Bobby Broom, Dave Brubeck, Gerald Clayton, Robin Eubanks, Herbie Hancock, Antonio Hart, Marquis Hill, Ingrid Jensen, Sean Jones, Delfeayo Marsalis, Christian McBride, Dayna Stephens, Bobby Watson, and Steve Wilson.
Before joining the Herbie Hancock Institute, Dr. Dyas served as Executive Director of the Brubeck Institute, where he conceived and launched its College Fellowship Program, Brubeck Festival, Summer Jazz Colony, and Jazz Outreach Initiative. Earlier, he was Director of Jazz Studies at Miami-Dade College, one of the nation’s largest and most diverse institutions of higher education, and New World School of the Arts, Miami’s acclaimed performing arts high school.
Throughout his career, Dyas has combined extensive professional performing experience with innovative teaching, curriculum development, and leadership development. An accomplished bassist, he has performed in well over 1,000 jazz and commercial music engagements, working with a wide range of artists and ensembles. Drawing on this firsthand experience, he has developed innovative jazz curricula, directed ensembles of all sizes, and taught jazz to students of every level – age eight to eighty, beginner to professional, learning-challenged to prodigy. His work has taken him to six continents, where he has performed and/or conducted jazz clinics in Australia, Austria, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, Russia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and throughout the United States. He also teaches Jazz Pedagogy for the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Performance at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music, serves as an advisor for the PBS Kids animated series Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band, and is a member of the GRAMMY Blue Ribbon Committee that annually selects the recipient of the GRAMMY Music Educator Award.
A prolific writer and nationally recognized thought leader in jazz education, Dr. Dyas has contributed numerous articles to DownBeat magazine and other leading music publications, presented at more than a dozen International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) and Jazz Education Network (JEN) conferences, co-founded the International Sisters in Jazz Collegiate Competition, and served on the Smithsonian Institution’s Task Force for Jazz Education in America. He has also taught at the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop and other premier summer programs, authored the chapter “Defining Jazz Education” in David Baker: A Legacy in Music, and developed a widely used series of teacher-training jazz pedagogy videos.
Most recently, Dr. Dyas introduced his lecture, What Is Jazz and Why It’s Important to the World, for International Jazz Day, for which he annually presents global educational events in partnership with the Hancock Institute and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). He has also led numerous music education seminars at the U.S. Department of Education in conjunction with successive U.S. Secretaries of Education, including a national webinar with U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona that has garnered more than 500,000 views on YouTube.
Dr. Dyas holds a Master of Music degree in Jazz Pedagogy from the University of Miami and a PhD in Music Education from Indiana University. In addition to his induction into the DownBeat Jazz Education Hall of Fame, he is a recipient of the DownBeat Achievement Award for Jazz Education as well as the Los Angeles Jazz Society Jazz Educator Award. His career as a professional bassist, educator, curriculum developer, and international jazz advocate reflects a lifelong commitment to advancing jazz through performance, education, and leadership. He also regularly presents Leadership-Through-the-Jazz-Paradigm seminars for educational institutions, corporations, and organizations around the world, applying the principles of jazz to leadership, collaboration, creativity, communication, and teamwork.