Stephen Johnson Turre (born September 12, 1948, in Omaha, Nebraska) is an American jazz trombonist and a pioneer of using seashells as instruments, a composer, arranger, and educator at the collegiate-conservatory level.

Although he entered California State University, Sacramento,[8] on a football scholarship, he studied music theory there for two years before transferring to the University of North Texas College of Music, where he studied from 1968 to 1969 and played in a band led by trumpeter Hannibal Peterson.

He has been trombonist for the Saturday Night Live band since 1985 and has taught jazz trombone at the Manhattan School of Music since 1988.

For fifty-four years (since 1970), Turre has been an exponent of seashells – conch in particular – as serious musical instruments.

His largest shell, from the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, has a range between the D and E below middle C, and was painted by a Cuban artist.

[14][15][16][17] Turre has had a long experience with Latin jazz and is a skilled player of the cowbell and Venezuelan maracas.

Turre has been a member of the Juilliard School faculty for eighteen years – since 2008, and previously from 2001 to 2003.