The Southern University Jazz Ensemble a.k.a. Alvin Batiste Jazz Institute was created by jazz clarinetist, Alvin Batiste, with the intent of exposing HBCU students to the art form of jazz. Alumni of the jazz program have performed with musical icons Wynton Marsalis, Russell Malone, Reginald Veal, Wess ‘Warmdaddy’ Anderson, Ellis Marsalis, and Ed Blackwell, to name a few.

In Fall of 2021, music department administrators hired jazz artists John Gray and Roderick Paulin to partner with veteran Southern University music educators Harry Anderson, Herman Jackson to restructure the jazz program. Their combined experiences of the real-world as professional artists is positively addressing current musical interests of students in the areas of performers, sound engineers, managers, and talent buyers. The historical significance of Alvin Batiste initiating a jazz program at Southern University in 1969 became a model for jazz pedagogy among other HBCU’s speaks to his personal and professional commitment to succeed as an educator and jazz artist despite roadblocks.

The SU Jazz Ensemble has partnered with local universities such as LSU and other patrons of jazz music programs to strengthen its’ purpose of serving local, national, and international communities. The Alvin Batiste Jazz Ensemble provides instrumentalists with the opportunity to study advanced concepts in the performance of classic, standard and contemporary big band literature dedicated to fostering a quality education, shaping the future of spring musicians, and maintaining the integrity of a great art form.