Draft:Jason Ward (Musician)

Jason W Ward, born in Maine October 23rd, 1971, is an American musician and music educator. Ward graduated with a bachelors degree in music education from University of Southern Maine in 2005, and went back for a masters degree in 2016. He has spent 15 years teaching music, and over 25 working as a professional musician. Over his years as a musician, he has played in several groups, most notably being Rustic Overtones. , a group he is still active in. Along side that he has been playing in several community groups, freelance, and has even been making his own music. Some of his interests are college football, gardening, and classic cars.

1971-1989
Ward was born in Maine however grew up in Florida and attended Astronaut High School in Titusville FL. He started playing alto saxophone at the age of 13, and was in his school band during High School. He would later learn to play more instruments such as the baritone saxophone, and play any gigs he could get.

1995-2002
After High School, Ward moved back to Maine and ended up joining Rustic Overtones playing baritone sax, becoming a full time traveling Musician ..

2002-2007
During this period, the members of Rustic Overtones had gone their separate ways. Ward decided to go to USM to get a Bachelors degree in music education, graduating in 2005. For the next two years he would play with local bands on the side, and focused on his music ed job he had gotten at a school ..

2007-2008
Rustic Overtones comes back for a few reunion shows and their new album Light at the End, released at the end of 2007 coinciding with the three scheduled reunion shows. While in the beginning they band had only planned on doing the three reunion shows and then moving onto solo work, during one of the shows, Spencer Albee proclaimed "We're never going to leave you again, we're sorry!" Jason would play the shows he was able to with the band, and continue teaching at schools.

2008-2009
Rustic Overtones had announced the departure of their Keyboardist Spencer Albee on good terms, the album they were working on The New Way Out would still release, even with the absence of Albee. Since then the band has released 5 more albums, and have been playing shows across New England.

2014-2016
Ward graduated at USM with a masters degree in music education, to further expand his knowledge on the topic

2019
Unfortunately and unexpectedly, trombonist Dave Noyes passed away. Multiple shows were played in honor of him, and raised money for his family. In November of 2019, the band released their latest album based on what Noyes had recorded.

2020
In 2020, Ward got the job as a high school band director at Lake Region High School. Since then he has enlarged the number of people in the school band, started a school jazz band, and been teaching several music classes at the school ..

Discography

 * Long Division (1995)
 * Rooms by the Hour (1998)
 * ¡Viva Nueva! (2001)
 * Light At The End (2007)
 * THE ULTIMATE (2018)
 * Rustic Overtones (2019)