July 12, 2009
Trumpeter Anthony Coleman has been a favorite with Lafayette Summer Music kids since his very first summer, when he arrived as a “teaching fellow,” after his second year at the University of the Pacific’s prestigious Brubeck Institute. It wasn’t just his infectious enthusiasm and incredible musicality that drew such raves from the Lafayette camp crew; his youth gave him a special rapport with the kids. He returned the following summer as a faculty member and he’s been back every summer since. These days he lives in New York – he studied at the New School of Music – and plays gigs all over Manhattan.
July 12, 2009
Internationally recognized jazz guitarist and recording artist Mimi Fox has reaped so many honors over her career, one scarcely knows where to start. Downbeat Magazine’s international critics polls accorded her its highest honors six years running, and she has performed with some of the leading jazz musicians of her day, including Charlie Byrd, Branford Marsalis, Diana Krall, Janis Siegel and Lonnie Smith, as well as with Stevie Wonder and John Sebastian. Two of her eight albums are on Steve Vai’s Favored Nations label, and her “Perpetually Hip” (2006) double album garnered critical and popular raves. She tours internationally, playing at the Montreal, Perth and Monterey Jazz Festivals, as well as at such venues as The Blue Note and the Kennedy Center. She has also appeared on Marian McPartland’s NPR show, “Piano Jazz,” “BET on Jazz” and other radio and television programs. Currently, she heads the guitar program at Berkeley’s Jazz School and is an adjunct professor at New York University. Download audio clips from Fox’ many recordings here.
July 12, 2009
Colin Wenhardt isn’t just an extraordinary tenor saxman and Lafayette jazz camper favorite – they particularly love his whimsical music choices. “Cats and Kittens,” anyone? Wenhardt has spent the last 34 years playing every sax, from sopranino to bari, as well as piccolo, flute and alto flute, clarinet and bass clarinet in concert halls, Broadway musical pits and aboard cruise ships. His gigs have included work with Tony Bennett, Natalie Cole, the Temptations, Isaac Hayes, Marvin Hamlisch, Ray Charles, Frederica von Stade and the San Francisco Symphony. You may have caught him in the pit playing for “Fosse” and “Chicago,” or in Bay Area jazz clubs with the Full Faith and Credit Jazz Orchestra, Black Market Jazz Orchestra or his own sax quartet. Check out his discography here.
June 27, 2009
We’re less than six weeks away from the launch of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Lafayette Summer Music Workshop! If you’re serious about jazz, you’ll want to be there August 3-7. This weeklong music workshop for teens, youths and adults offers an intense immersion in the world of jazz. Learn from jazz luminaries such as Mary Fettig, Frank Martin and Wayne Wallace. Hang with fellow musicians, chow down at the lavish daily barbecues, and finish your week with a marathon jazz fest. Click here for details and paperwork, the daily schedule, audition info (placement auditions are Aug. 2), and the lowdown on our stellar jazz faculty. More questions? Drop us an e-mail or click “comments” and post them right here.
June 27, 2009
Award-winning pianist, composer, arranger … and mountain climber, Ellen Rowe bring an eclectic mix of interests to the Lafayette Summer Music Workshop. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Rowe has composed, performed and recorded with the legendary Village Vanguard Orchestra, the BBC Jazz Orchestra, the U.S. Navy Commodores and the Berlin Radio Jazz Orchestra, as well as her own Ellen Rowe Quartet, but her day job is at the University of Michigan School of Music where she heads the department of jazz piano and contemporary improvisation. She also tours internationally, and teaches workshops and master classes at the Melbourne Conservatory, Cologne’s Hochshule fur Musik and London’s Royal Academy of Music, among others. Listen to tracks from her Ellen Rowe Quartet albums, “Sylvan Way” and “Denali Pass,” here.
June 27, 2009
Legendary trombonist, arranger and composer Wayne Wallace is one of those artists with a resume so long, one scarcely knows where to start. Born in San Francisco, trained at San Francisco State and La Escuela Nacional in Havana, Cuba, Wallace has taught jazz trombone, improvisation and composition at his alma mater as well as at Stanford, UC Berkeley, San Jose State and the JazzSchool. His compositions and arrangements have graced the stage at the American Conservatory Theater and sound stages in Hollywood, and he has produced and arranged recordings for such artists as Celine Dion, Santana, Sister Sledge, Pete Escovedo and John Lee Hooker. Wallace has performed with the Count Basie Orchestra, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Sonny Rollins and countless other legendary musicians. But for young musicians at the Lafayette Summer Music Workshop, he is simply Dr. Wayne, the generous, superbly gifted trombonist who returns year after year. Hear tracks from his latest album, Infinity, here.
June 27, 2009
Tenor saxophonist Matt Morrish is a longtime fixture on the Bay Area music scene. A Lafayette native, Morrish spent most of the 1990s in New Orleans, playing in clubs, aboard riverboats, in parades and casinos, and studying with jazz greats Ellis Marsalis and Ed Peterson. A chance meeting with Afro-Cuban jazz artist Juan de Marcos of Buena Vista Social Club fame – while waiting for a delayed plane in an airport lounge, no less – led to collaboration on Morrish’ latest recording, “Trinket Lover.” These days, Morris plays regular gigs at Bo’s in Lafayette and Vinoteca in Danville, as well as the Berkeley JazzSchool and other venues. And he’s a longtime member of the Lafayette Summer Music Workshop faculty.
June 27, 2009
Multi-platinum recording artist and pianist Frank Martin has performed with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to the San Francisco Symphony, Sting, Stevie Wonder and Elton John. And his jazz resume is equally lengthy and impressive, including gigs with Herbie Hancock, Flora Purim Joe Farrell and the Slide Hampton Big Band. In addition to performing, arranging and producing, the Oakland-born Martin also teaches at Berkeley’s JazzSchool, heads the advanced jazz combo at the University of California, Berkeley, and serves as a much sought after clinician at the Stanford Jazz Workshop and music festivals here and in Europe. This marks Martin’s 11th year at the Lafayette Summer Music Workshop.
It’s just three short weeks till the 2009 Lafayette Summer Music Workshop. Mark your calendars now! Placement auditions are slated for Sunday, August 2 from 10 a.m. till late afternoon. Audition time slots should be landing in your e-mail inbox shortly. Here’s what else you need to know:
