The life journey of Joe Utterback '68/69 is a musical one.
Busy performing, conducting, composing and teaching jazz, the WSU music graduate celebrates his 65th birthday this fall, but he has no plans to retire — or slow down.
“I’m too old to know how to do anything else,” Utterback jokes. He lives in Stratford, Conn., and regularly commutes to New York City to perform.
Born in Hutchinson, Kan., and raised in Wichita, he got his first gig fresh out of Derby High School and was hooked. WSU was a natural next step because of its emphasis on music and its talented faculty, he says.
He readily admits to ups and downs along his career path. “Oh, there have been some bumps along the way,” he says. “It’s tough to be a freelance musician. It doesn’t always pay well. Sometimes you’re living on Hamburger Helper.”
But through the years, he stuck to his music, which has paid off with many rewarding experiences. He has contributed to some 70 recordings (he’s lost track of the exact number), and his works have premiered in numerous prestigious venues, including London’s Westminster Cathedral, Princeton and Harvard universities and the Salzburg Mozarteum.
In 2002, he played a concert in Wiedemann Hall at WSU. “It was, then, 33 years since I’d performed at the school,” he says. “Whew, the time passes.”
