ate Kimball, a 27-year-old Las Vegas native, is a Graduate of the Downbeat Award-Winning UNLV Jazz Program with dual Bachelor’s Degrees in Jazz Trombone Performance and Jazz Composition. In addition to currently studying at UNLV for his Master’s degree in Jazz Composition, Nate Kimball performs full-time as trombonist and back-up bassist with Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity show at the New York New York Hotel and Casino. Recently, Nate was the winner of the 2010 ITA J.J. Johnson Jazz Competition. Nate has been playing gigs in Las Vegas since the age of 16, where his first gig was a wedding reception with a Wayne Newton impersonator in a seedy hotel in Laughlin, Nevada. As the years went on, Nate continued to slowly climb up the rungs before landing a steady gig, at the age of 21, with the Las Vegas Classic Jazz Band, a six-piece traditional Dixieland jazz band located in the Gold Coast casino that performed five days a week, six sets a day. Three years thereafter, Nate accepted the job he currently holds today. As a freelance artist, Nate has had the privilege of working nearly every venue Las Vegas has to offer while working alongside artists and groups such as Natalie Cole, Barry Manilow, The Count Basie Orchestra, Jessica Simpson, Royal Crown Revue, The Impressions, Gene Pitney, Eddie Holman, and Gladys Knight, among many others. In addition, Nate worked on many of Las Vegas’s headlining and visiting shows including Donny & Marie, Manhattan Transfer, Tommy Tune, Marvin Hamlisch, Ben Vereen, The Producers, Poker: The Musical, The Rat Pack Show, and Santa Fe & The Fat City Horns. Nate’s experiences as a jazz performer have allowed him to share the stage with many prominent jazz entities as the late Carl Fontana, Bobby Shew, George Garzone, John Allred, Bob Florence, Elliot Mason, Andy Hunter, Harry Waters, Ruth Brown, Jim Pugh, Bill Richenbach, and Peter Erskine.
s a writer, Nate Kimball’s revolutionary work for big band, “Namaste”, was the recent recipient of ASCAP’s 2011 Young Composer Award and a runner-up for the New York Youth Symphony’s “First Music” Competition in the jazz category. In addition, his recent work “Side Effect” for revised big band was premiered by the Las Vegas Academy high school band at the Monterrey Jazz Festival. won the Nevada Jazz Society’s “Young Writers Competition” in 2007 for his first original for big band “Daydream”. In addition, Nate’s original tunes, including “Escalator” for jazz octet and “Road to La Coruna” for quartet have received numerous radio plays on Las Vegas’s local jazz radio station. Other accolades include first alternate for the 2006 ITA J.J. Johnson Jazz Competition, finalist for the 2007 ITA J.J. Johnson Jazz Competition, Outstanding Soloist at the 2002 Monterrey Jazz Festival, and three-time Command Performance winner at the Nevada All-State Solo and Ensemble Competitions as a euphonium soloist in 1999, 2000, and 2002.
