Paul Dietrich has been described as “an apt bandleader, an exceptional composer, and a superlative performer” (All About Jazz) and “a skilled composer” (JazzTrail) and his music has been praised as “stunningly beautiful” (Audiophile Audition) and “captivating” (Chicago Jazz Magazine).
A composer, trumpet player and educator based in the upper Midwest, Dietrich has been the leader of several different ensembles dating back to 2012. The Paul Dietrich Jazz Ensemble’s 2019 album Forward features guest artist and world-renowned drummer Clarence Penn (Dave Douglas, Maria Schneider) alongside many of the Midwest’s best jazz musicians, including Greg Ward, Russ Johnson, Dustin Laurenzi, and Andy Baker. The Chicago-based Paul Dietrich Quintet has released two albums: Focus (2017, ears&eyes) and We Always Get There (2014, Blujazz). More recently, Dietrich has recorded albums with two new groups: 5+4, a jazz quintet with a string quartet, was released in 2023 on Shifting Paradigm Records. Dietrich’s Elemental Quartet, featuring Matt Gold, Brian Courage, and Devin Drobka, has also recorded their debut album for Shifting Paradigm, slated for release in December 2024.
In demand as a composer, Dietrich has completed over a dozen commissions for schools and organizations including Lawrence University’s Jazz Weekend, Ripon College, Madison College with the Edgar Knecht Trio (Germany), the Mount Horeb Middle School Jazz Festival, the Water City Jazz Orchestra, and various high schools throughout Wisconsin. In 2017, Paul was commissioned by the Wisconsin Union Theater in Madison to write an extended work in honor of the Isthmus Jazz Festival’s 30th anniversary. This piece was premiered at the festival in June 2017 by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Jazz Orchestra. Paul’s music been played throughout the United States, and was performed as part of a cultural exchange program in Camagüey, Cuba in 2019. Dietrich has also written a variety of classical works, and his music has been performed by V3nto Brass Trio, several Wisconsin-based brass quintets, and a solo trumpet work which has been performed by his wife, the trumpeter Jessica Jensen.
Paul has twice been the recipient of the Greater Madison Jazz Consortium’s Artistic Development Grant. In 2017, he wrote the four-part suite “Forward,” inspired by the sights and sounds of his home state, which became the core of his 2019 Jazz Ensemble album of the same name. In 2020, Paul received a grant to write and perform music for a nine-piece ensemble including a string quartet, which debuted in 2021 and was later recorded as 5+4.
As an educator, Paul is on the music faculty at Ripon College where he directs the jazz ensemble and jazz combo and teaches private lessons. He has also spent a term teaching jazz trumpet at Lawrence University in 2021, he coordinated the jazz program at Prairie Music & Arts in Sun Prairie, WI from 2014-20, and he directed the Jazz Orchestra at Madison East High School from 2016-18.