CASSITY, Sharel

American jazz composer, saxophonist, bandleader, recording artist, and educator, born in Iowa City and raised in Yukon, Oklahoma. She studied jazz at the University of Central Oklahoma and the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music before earning a master’s degree from the Juilliard School. Her music draws on bebop, hard bop, Latin jazz, funk, and contemporary jazz. Cassity received the ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award in 2007 and was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame. As a bandleader, she has released the albums Just for You, Relentless, Manhattan Romance, Evolve, Fearless, and Gratitude. Her original compositions include Whimsy, Fearless, North Street, Road to Dukhan, Surrender, Ballad for Roy, Not a Samba, Magnetism, Gratitude, and The Promise. Her album Fearless consists almost entirely of her original compositions, while Gratitude contains five original works inspired by family, motherhood, friendship, and her mentor Jimmy Heath. Cassity is Associate Professor and Director of Jazz Performance at the University of Virginia.