Jeff Rupert appears on over 75 albums, 11 of those as a leader. Rupert is a featured soloist on recordings with Mel Tormé, Kevin Mahogany, Ernestine Anderson, Maynard Ferguson, Sam Rivers, Kenny Barron, Veronica Swift, George Garzone, Diane Schuur, and on Benny Carter’s Grammy winning album, Harlem Renaissance. Rupert has performed at major jazz clubs and concert halls around the world, including the Blue Note, Birdland, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Tokyo Forum, the National concert hall of Taipei, Taiwan, and jazz festivals throughout Europe, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and Japan. Rupert’s album The Ripple was the #5 jazz album of the year (2020) and his most recent album It Gets Better (2024) with jazz luminaries Kenny Barron, Joe Farnsworth and Peter Washington was in the top ten of the three national jazz charts for 17 weeks. He is Distinguished Professor, Trustee Endowed Chair, and Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Central Florida (UCF) and founded Flying Horse Records. Jeff Rupert authors and hosts Jazz and the American Spirit, a nationally syndicated weekly radio show on NPR, examining the connection between jazz and the American experience.
