Submitted photo / Todd Rosenberg Warren native Sean Jones will perform with the W.D. Packard Concert Band on Sunday at Packard Music Hall.

Warren native Sean Jones has played everywhere from New York’s Carnegie Hall to London’s Royal Albert Hall and with many of the biggest names in jazz.

“I played the biggest concert halls in the world, and I still get more nervous coming home than I do with those places,” Jones said.

The trumpet player will be back home Sunday as a guest artist with the W.D. Packard Concert Band.

It will be the 1996 Warren G. Harding High School graduate’s first appearance as a guest with the band, but he’s no stranger to the ensemble. He occasionally played in the trumpet section when he was a student at Youngstown State University’s Dana School of Music.

“Bob Fleming was the conductor, and there was a level of seriousness that Bob brought to the table that really influenced my career early on,” Jones said. “He was a no-nonsense kind of a guy, and that, in essence, prepared me for what the Dana School of Music was going to be like, and I appreciated that level of seriousness.

“The other side (is), the people were just nice. It was some older folks in the band at the time, and everybody was very encouraging. There were some folks — and this is in every community — that were quote, unquote, warning me about a career in music. Bob and the folks in the band, they seemed to say, ‘Hey, Sean, you can do this, you can have a career in it. We believe that you’re going to be successful.’ And so I remember the band being very supportive and helping me to understand and just grasp the idea of what a career in music could look like. And I really appreciated that.”

Galen S. Karriker, conductor of the Packard band, is the director of bands at the University of Akron, and he was planning on bringing Jones there for a residency. Thomas A. Groth, executive director of the Packard band, worked with Karriker to bring Jones in a day early as a guest artist for what will be his first Warren performance in more than a dozen years.

Even as a teenager, Jones made a strong impression.

“There was no doubt about it, as he went through high school, you knew he was something special,” Groth said.

Jones more than lived up to those expectations. Wynton Marsalis picked him as first trumpet with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. When former Miles Davis sidemen Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Marcus Miller decided to do a tour celebrating Davis’s legacy, they picked Jones as their trumpet player. He’s released eight albums on Mack Avenue Records and has appeared on many others.

Jones is artistic director of Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra Jazz ensemble, and he is the Richard and Elizabeth Case Chair of Jazz at John Hopkins University’s Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. He previously taught at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Jones said the teachers he grew up with in Warren shaped him both as a musician and as an educator.

“They were stern when they needed to be stern, and they were supportive when it was time to be supportive,” he said. “They just let me know that I had something special, and they encouraged me to cultivate that. That’s what I try to do with my students. I try to encourage them. I try to meet them where they are. I try to hold them accountable with love.

“Those are, frankly, just good Northeast Ohio values. One of the things I tell people is that I’m fortunate enough to come from a blue-collar neighborhood and a blue-collar town. People just woke up every day, put their heads down and went to work and got it done … They made sure young people knew that if you work hard, you can get to do what you do, the possibility is there, no matter where you come from. I appreciate that upbringing, and I try to instill that in my students.”

That attitude is embodied by the one original composition Jones will play on Sunday. It’s called “You’ve Been Warrened,” and the title was inspired by a DJ friend, who also is from the area.

“He used to always tell me that I should write a tune called ‘You’ve Been Warrened.’ What people don’t understand is that the Warren-Youngstown area is really special. There’s special people that come out of that area. And when the world meets these people, they’re not ready for it. You’ve had the spirit of Warren, Ohio placed on you, so that’s what the song is going to be about.”

Jim Garber, piano; Shawn Marko, bass; and Thomas Ruggieri, drums, will be playing with Jones on that song and Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood,” and Jones will be the trumpet soloist on an arrangement by Donald Hunsberger of “‘Tis the Last Rose of Summer” and “Believe Me, If All Those Enduring Young Charms” with the full band..

Jones said of the Ellington tune, “It just captures how I feel about coming home. I always get sort of a rejuvenation when I come home, because the world on these coasts is pretty intense, and I’m being pulled in a lot of directions. It’s nice to just come home and be around people that knew me when and know me at my core. I’m grateful for the opportunity to come back home and see some friends and family.”

If you go …

WHAT: W.D. Packard Concert Band with Galen S. Karriker, conductor, and Sean Jones, trumpet

WHEN: 3 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: Packard Music Hall, 1703 Mahoning Ave NW, Warren

HOW MUCH: Admission is free, and funding is provided by the W.D. Packard Trust.

ALSO: Following the Packard concert, Jones will do a week-long residency at the University of Akron that includes three public concerts:

• 7:30 p.m. Monday with the University of Akron Wind Symphony at UA’s Guzzetta Recital, 228 E. Buchtel Ave., Akron

• 7:30 p.m. March 19 with the Birth of Cool Ensemble and the UA Jazz Ensemble at Musica, 51 E. Market St., Akron.

• 7:30 p.m. March 20 with UA faculty, special guests and alumni performing “Way of the Sly Man” at First Congregational Church, 292 E. Market St., Akron.

Admission to all three concerts is free.