James Ward is a composer, performer, and recording artist who resides in Chattanooga, Tennessee with his wife Beth. He holds a BA in music from Covenant College and a Masters in Music from the University of Tennessee.
James graduated college in 1972 and immediately began a career in songwriting, performing, and recording Christian music for college, church, and convention audiences. After 3 years as a music campus intern with Intervarsity, he left the South to join an experimental jazz group in Pittsburgh. In 1978 he and his family returned to Chattanooga and shortly thereafter he signed with Lamb and Lion Records in Nashville. Ward has recorded 14 albums and has written several hit songs, as well as numerous contemporary praise songs, including the contemporary setting of “Rock of Ages.”
His performance career was paralleled by his leadership in the church plant that became New City Fellowship on Third Street in Chattanooga. He wrote many worship songs, choir pieces, and helped form a liturgical music context for a cross-cultural community. It was then that he got his master’s in jazz from UT-Knoxville and soon after taught for 5 years at Chattanooga Christian School as high school music teacher. He began a 16-year full-time music directorship at New City Fellowship in 2002, during which some 35 music interns served under his leadership during the summers. In 2018 he retired from the music directorship but had been part-time teaching at Covenant College and Lee University in their jazz piano programs.
Today James Ward is adjunct professor of jazz and songwriting at Covenant College and teaches jazz piano in private lessons. Like most career musicians he has also played in numerous local venues and led a wedding band called Platinum Groove from 2008-2012. He is currently the house pianist for the Barking Legs Jazz Jam.
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Amplify is a podcast network made up of people of color and operating out of Chattanooga, TN. Amplify is a project of RISE Chattanooga, formerly known as Jazzanooga—a minority based cultural arts nonprofit organization focused on community education, performance, and arts and cultural preservation.
