Dave Kosmyna

Dave Kosmyna, was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio where he grew up listening to Ray Heitger’s Cakewalkin’ Jass Band every weekend at the world-famous Tony Packo’s Café. As a young kid, his first records were of Louis Armstrong, Pearl Bailey, Bix Beiderbecke, and the Dukes of Dixieland. After a stint teaching himself piano, Dave took up the trumpet at age 10. While in college, his classical trumpet teacher, a native New Orlenian who studied with Al Hirt in the 1940s, introduced him to the music of George Girard, Sharkey Bonano, and Santo Pecora. This led Dave to start his own traditional jazz band in college that held a steady weekly gig at Ragtime Rick’s First Draught in Toledo. The band became regulars, first as a youth ensemble, then as a professional group, for nearly a decade at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee.

Always driven to be a teacher, Dave pursued a BM in Music Education, a MM in Composition, and finally a DMA in Classical Trumpet from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. His dissertation was a pedagogical treatise entitled What Ya Want Me to Do: A Guide to learning jazz cornet/trumpet in the New Orleans Style. Dave then entered academia, first at SUNY Fredonia, and now at Ohio Northern University where he is Professor of Music. He has recorded with the Cincinnati Pops, played under the batons of Erich Kunzel and Marvin Hamlisch, and frequently arranges music for chamber brass ensembles in the jazz idiom. His arrangement of It Don’t Mean A Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing (BVD Press) has become a standard recorded and performed by brass quintets across the globe, including the New York Philharmonic Brass Quintet.

In 2003 Dave joined the Climax Jazz Band of Toronto, Canada and has played over a hundred jazz festivals across the Americas and in Europe. And with Climax, he has had the pleasure of working with Clint Baker, Chris Tyle, Hal Smith, George Probert, Brian Ogilvie, Steve Mellor, Brian Towers, Bill Richards, Jim Buchmann, Bob Ringwald, Jeff Barnhart, Colin Bowden, Katie Cavera and many more.

Currently Dave works throughout the US with ensembles led by Jeff Barnhart, Hal Smith, Jonathan Stout, Michael Gamble, TJ Müller, Josh Duffee, Charlie Halloran, Jonathan Doyle, Matt Tolentino, Jake Sanders and Kris Tokarski. Back home in Toledo, he is the cornet player for the Cakewalkin’ Jass Band, Alex Belhaj’s Crescent City Quartet and Pete Siers’ Kerrytown Stompers. As a life-long student of traditional jazz, and multi-instrumentalist, also playing piano, banjo, trombone, tuba, clarinet and saxophone, Dave is very humbled and honored to have been asked to join as pianist for Phil Ogilvie’s Rhythm Kings (P.O.R.K.), the classic hot-jazz 10-piece ensemble founded by legendary late James Dapogny. In 2016, Dave and Jim co-founded the Centennial Dixieland Jass Band, which championed the music of the ODJB.