Jim Carroll, alto sax virtuoso and director of jazz studies at George Mason University, founded the Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra to recreate the spontaneous enthusiasm that raged throughout the big band era. To guarantee authenticity, he recruited professional musicians from the Washington area who are either veterans or students of those decades in American music history when everyone danced to music from the bandstand.

During his career, Carroll has played in major venues, including Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall, the White House and the Apollo Theater. He was a member of Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd for a number of years and has worked with such artists as Michael Jackson, Nancy Wilson, Maynard Ferguson and Billy Taylor. A charter member of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, he performed with them until joining the GMU faculty.