2022 Jazz 75th Anniversary Reunion Program

What Mr. Breeden
brought to the table was
a legitimacy (not to imply
Gene Hall did not) that jazz
desperately needed to
survive over the next few
years. His credentials were
impeccable, even to the
most severe critics, and he
maintained a professional
rapport with fellow faculty
members that I could not
see existing had some of
the more flamboyant jazz
personalities of the day
been in that position.
Remarkably, while
navigating this
administrative tightrope,
Leon was still somehow
able to inspire a talented,
diverse group of guys to
produce some of the most
innovative music ever
created to date. Then, at
semester’s end, came the
festivals, and that same
bunch would pack those
egos 4-deep into whoever’s
car was running for the
drive to South Bend or Georgetown. Breeden’s
long-suffering ‘57 Chevy, hauling a trailer full of
instruments, was a familiar sight on the side of the
road.
No one could have envisioned that, only a few
years later, the band would be making those trips
on chartered flights. So many great things were to
come, due in no small part to the sacrifices made
during those formative years. I was gratified to
learn that, approaching his retirement, Leon finally
received some of the credit he so richly deserved.
Leon Breeden’s contributions to Jazz Studies at North
Texas and in colleges and universities both nationally and
internationally could fill a book, but several milestones are
particularly worth noting:
It was under Breeden that “North Texas State
Lab Band” became “The One O’Clock Lab Band”
and this marker of time became synonymous with
quality. His autobiography identifies April 11, 1961
as a pivotal moment, as it was the date of the first
full concert that identified the top band as the One
O’Clock Lab Band.
In the early 1960s, Stan
Kenton first heard the One
O’Clock Lab Band (or as
he called it, the Number
One Lab Band), and was
astounded. Breeden began a
Leon Breeden, February 1961.
It was under BREEDEN that
“North Texas State Lab Band” became
“THE ONE O’CLOCK LAB BAND”
collaboration with Stan Kenton
that included collaborating at
the Kenton Clinics and a Lab
Band appearance on ABC
television in 1966; this resulted
in Kenton’s donation of his
library to UNT and the naming
of Lab Band West, the One
O’Clock Lab Band’s rehearsal
hall that had been added in the
1978 expansion of the music
building, in Kenton’s honor.
Stage band contests had
brought Gene Hall and Leon
Breeden in contact with
judges who included Voice of
America’s jazz radio host Willis
Conover. By 1962, Conover
was broadcasting recordings
of the One O’Clock to a
global audience on his nightly
program.
In 1964, Breeden welcomed
the band’s first Black member,
Billy Harper, almost a decade
after the university began to
integrate. Harper graduated
in 1965 and hit the ground
running as a distinguished
leader and sideman, playing
with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Elvin Jones, the Thad
Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, Max Roach’s quartet, and Gil
Evans in addition to leading his own projects.
The year 1967 brought a State Department-sponsored
tour of Mexico, followed by a summer trip to the White
House to perform with Duke Ellington and Stan Getz for
President and Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson and the king and
queen of Thailand. The late king Bhumibol Adulyadej was
himself a composer and jazz saxophonist, and he met the
band again on its tour of Thailand in 2004. Ellington was
also impressed by the encounter and was quoted as saying
that after hearing the “kids” of the One O’Clock Lab Band,
he was going to go home and call a five-hour rehearsal. In
addition, 1967 saw the inaugural album of the band’s annual
album series with Lab ’67.
The ascendancy of the band – and with it, the profile and
reputation of jazz education – continued into 1968. While
the band was reaching a new high point, Breeden pressed
on through a crushing low point in his life, grieving the
death of his 19-year-old son Danny in a hit-and-run accident
in February of 1968. The band grieved with Breeden and
supported him as they prepared for the Music Educators
National Conference in Seattle. There, the band played
for over 3,000 of the top music educators in the United
States. As they waited to
play, one band member
told Breeden: “Tell them
not to open that curtain.
We’re going to blow it open
in memory of your son
Danny!” Indeed, the band
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University of North Texas College of Music