Trombonist, composer and Peabody Jazz graduate student Spencer Merk—winner of the U.S. Naval Academy Band’s 2023 Call for Scores competition for “Perry’s Ferry”— leads a combo of his Jazz Studies peers for the first installment of our weekly Friday Noon:30 Recital Series. Merk is joined by fellow second-year graduate students Emerson Borg (trumpet, flugelhorn) and Andrew Kreitner (tenor saxophone, bass clarinet), first-year graduate students Tomás Jonsson (piano) and Maggie Kinney (vocals), and undergraduate Aidan Taylor (bass), performing Merk’s originals “.154,” “Socks,” and “Running Rabbits,” along with his arrangements of Billy Childs’ yearning “Stay” and John Coltrane’s intoxicatingly loping “Giant Steps.”