Creative jazz artist Jae Sinnett will bring originality and a mixture of styles to the Maintenance Shop Sunday night. The group will also perform with the Jazz Ensembles I and II at The Martha Ellen-Tye Recital Hall Monday.

“Our [music] is culturally inclusive, and each of us has input,” Sinnett said. “It could be swing one minute and be funky the next.”

The Jae Sinnett Trio features Sinnett, a talented jazz drummer, composer and radio personality. He’s joined by Terry Burrell on bass and Allen Farnham on piano. The group has been together for about three and a half years. Farnham lives in New Jersey, and both Sinnett and Burrell are from Virginia.

They, along with many other bands, have had their share of stories while on the road.

“We were playing in Galesburg, Ill. and had to be picked up in Peoria and taken to Galesburg,” Sinnett said. “They picked us up in a 1977 Suburban Humvee-type vehicle. We nicknamed it ‘Das Boot’. It was winter and they had a lot of snow.

“On the return trip back to Peoria, ‘Das Boot’ broke down in the middle of nowhere. Just hay silos and snow and about 18 degrees. Not a pretty sight.”

One of the trio’s favorite shows was at the prestigious Jazz Corner.

“[The Jazz Corner] is probably the best jazz club on the scene today,” Sinnett said. “[But] it doesn’t make a difference where we go. Each [show] is as important as the other is because if we reach one [person], then we’ve done our job. If there is a desire to learn, then get us there.”

James Bovinette, director of the jazz ensemble program and professor of trumpet, first met Sinnett in New Orleans.

“He’s a very good entertainer,” Bovinette said. “The trio works the audience very well.”

Bovinette said students not only in the jazz ensembles, but also those who will be watching at the M-Shop, will benefit from the trio’s performance.

“Music is a professional vocation,” Bovinette said. “This gives the students a valuable opportunity to see how people make a career out of something they love.”

Bovinette also commented on the trio’s music.

“It’ll be very straight-ahead,” Bovinette said. “It’s all original compositions.”

Sinnett’s long list of honors includes playing with jazz legends such as Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard and Ellis Marsalis.

Sinnett is also the senior jazz producer for the NPR affiliate WHRV-FM, for which Gavin Magazine, a well-known jazz publication, recently nominated him Jazz Programmer of the Year.

Mark Anderson, sophomore in music, plays trumpet in Jazz Ensemble I and will be performing with Sinnett.

“I’m looking forward to performing with Mr. Sinnett because so much can be learned by playing with someone who has experienced the music world as he has,” Anderson said. “It’s always good to listen and think about other people’s ideas, especially when that person is as knowledgeable as Mr. Sinnett.”

This will be the jazz ensembles’ first concert of the spring semester. The Jae Sinnett Trio will be the guest performer, and the concert will feature traditional jazz as well as modern improvisations.

“We are playing a piece called ‘Lover’ that is pretty much a straightforward swing chart that I personally like,” Anderson said. “But I think the crowd will really go for ‘If We Could Only Sail Away,’ a jazz waltz which breaks down into a free form, in which the band does everything short of lighting their instruments on fire.”