Kim Corbet

Kim Corbet grew up in an era when jazz and rock were equally important in American culture, transforming each other into innovative crossover hybrids. 

Tutored and mentored by teachers known for their drive and spirit, Corbet seeks to reach deep and connect with artists and students with that same energy. His love of creativity on stage and in the classroom led to a career blend of performance and education.

On the performance side, Corbet has been both artist and commercial musician, having spent 20 years playing trombone in ballrooms, country clubs and dinner theatres on what is described as the Vegas circuit. He has performed with dozens of name performers such as Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, Jose Feliciano, Phyllis Diller, George Burns, Cyd Charisse, Glen Campbell, Lou Rawls and Ray Price, and has played hundreds of gigs with local and legendary orchestras, including the UNT One O’Clock Lab Band, The Glenn Miller Band, Duke Ellington and The Bob Crosby Orchestra. 

In the early ’90s he hung up the tux and began producing multi-media shows for private galleries and community centers. For 16 years he worked for Dallas’s NPR station, KERA, winning the 1984 Dallas Observer DJ of the Year.

SMU hired him to teach jazz history, soon after adding rock history and, along the way, the highly improvisational Meadows New Music Ensemble and, currently, the POINT ensemble, in which students explore their artistic passions in unique performance and research projects.