Jim Gailloreto is an accomplished jazz saxophonist, arranger and composer. He has a Bachelors in Music Composition from De Paul University and a Masters in Music Composition from Northwestern University. In 1997, he embarked on a new project called Jazz String Quintet. It is an integration of both jazz and classical music written for string quartet and soprano saxophone. Inspired by sources as diverse as Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel to Miles Davis and John Coltrane, Gailloreto offers a perfect blend of classical music and jazz; structure and spontaneity. The compositions interweave his own soprano saxophone with skilled modernist writing for string quartet. "No composer has shaped the structures and layered the phrases of the string quartet to so successfully accommodate full-tilt improvisation," writes jazz authority Neil Tesser. He has performed with the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, Chicago Chamber Musicians and the new music group Fulcrum Point. He also records and performs with Blue Note artist Patricia Barber, guitarist John Mc Lean, pianist Jeremy Kahn, vocalist Grazyna Auguscik and composer/pianist Fred Hersch. His string quartet arrangements can be heard on Kurt Elling's CD "Dedicated To You". He recently performed a Chicago premier of Marc Anthony Turnage's "Scorched" with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and John Scofield. Jim is a recipient of the New Works: Creation & Presentation Program Grant from Chamber Music America. Through this grant he has created an intricate four movement work entitled "American Complex." In the broadest sense, Jazz String Quintet pays homage to America's greatest jazz legends. And within this new CD exists a timely and brilliant collaboration with vocalist and composer Patricia Barber, exploring something innovative; the jazz side of classical music art songs.

The Metropolitan Jazz Octet (MJO) is the reawakening of a group that started in the 1950’s by Chicago saxophonist and arranger Tom Hilliard.
From 1950 through mid 80's Hilliard wrote many of the octets compositions. He worked with Chicago’s top arrangers and studio musicians expanding the library to 150-plus charts. In 1959 MJO recorded an album on the Argo label called The Legend of Bix, a tribute to 1920's great cornetist and composer Bix Beiderbecke. As a professor at De Paul University School of Music, Hilliard taught three current members of MJO to whom he bequeathed his complete library, passing the torch to the next generation.
This new octet started exploring Tom Hilliard’s library in 2014, and with the support from the Non-profit Jazz Artist Resource, and has since composed and recorded three albums.
Now lead by Jim Gailloreto, John Kornegay, Peter Brusen and John McCortney, MJO is made up of talented musicians active in jazz and music education in Chicago. Together they create a unique and fresh contribution to the on going spirit of jazz.