Siskiyou Music Project Holiday Jazz Celebration with Leslie Kendall & Friends

Jazz In The Vineyard, Paschal Winery
Saturday, December 20, 7 p.m.
Cost $25/$20 for SMP Members
SOLD OUT! To be on the wait list please call 541-488-3869

Please join us for our annual Holiday Jazz Concert with vocalist Leslie Kendall, guitarist Ed Dunsavage, bassist Joe Cohoon and drummer Chicken Hirsh for a concert of holiday favorites and jazz classics by such composers as Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jimmy Van Heusan and others at 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 20, at Paschal Winery, 1122 Suncrest Road, Talent. Reservations highly recommended as this show always is a sell out!

Proceeds from this performance will help raise funds for the Siskiyou Music Project Artists-In-Schools Program which brings music into Rogue Valley classrooms.

Roberta Piket/Billy Mintz Quartet

With Putter Smith & John Gross
Friday November 14 • 7 pm
Live At The Artistic ~ Artistic Piano Gallery, Medford
Cost: $25/$20 for SMP Members/$10 for students
Reservations: Email or 541-488-3869 for reservation
or by credit card using the shopping cart below.


Reservations




Siskiyou Music Project welcomes back NY pianist Roberta Piket and drummer Billy Mintz for a performance at the Artistic Piano Gallery in Medford on Friday, November 14 at 7 p.m. They will be joined by L.A. bassist Putter Smith and Portland based saxophonist John Gross.

Pianist/composer Roberta Piket is one of a handful of New York musicians who is respected for both her swinging and inventive straight-ahead jazz playing as well as her powerful and sensitive work in creative improvised music. For Roberta, there are no genre boundaries, only the opportunity to make exceptional music. Roberta has played professionally as a side-woman with David Liebman, Rufus Reid, Michael Formanek, Lionel Hampton, Mickey Roker, Valery Ponomarev, Harvey Wainapel, Eliot Zigmund, Benny Golson, Urszula Dudziak and the BMI/NY Jazz Orchestra and has thrice been a featured guest on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz, on National Public Radio. A gifted composer as well, Roberta was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk BMI Composers’ Competition.

Drummer-Billy-MintzDrummer Billy Mintz has been performing with the members of this group in various formats for the last thirty years, starting when he moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1981. Billy met the great John Gross at that time along with other great LA jazz musicians playing in Tom Persons’ big band. Billy started playing with incredible Putter Smith in Alan Broadbent’s Trio in 1989. In 2003 Billy moved back to New York City where he started playing in Roberta Piket’s trio.

John-Gross

John Gross is an internationally respected musician and has resided in Portland since 1991. Among his employers past and present; Harry James, Stan Kenton, Lionel Hampton, Shelly Manne, Don Ellis, Woody Herman and Toshiko Akiyoshi. He performs regularly with Gordon Lee Quartet, David Friesen, David Frishberg, Alan Jones Sextet and his own groups Blema Bii and the John Gross quartet. John has taught at universities in the US and Europe and is the author of “185 Multiphonics for the Saxophone, A Practical Guide” published by Advance Music.

Putter-SmithPutter Smith is a legendary jazz bassist who has played with great artists such as Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Warne Marsh, Alan Broadbent, Bob Brookmeyer, Billy Eckstine, Diane Schuur, Lee Konitz, Jackie and Roy, Carmen McRae, Gary Foster, Art Farmer, Blue Mitchell, Art Pepper, Ray Charles and many more.

New West Guitar Group

Thursday, October 23 • 7 pm
Jazz In The Vineyard, Paschal Winery (1122 Suncrest Road, Talent, OR)
Tickets $25/$20 for SMP Members/$10 for students
Reservations: Email or 541-488-3869 for reservation
or by credit card using the shopping cart below.


Reservations




Siskiyou Music Project welcomes back the New West Guitar Group. Featuring John Storie, Perry Smith and Jeff Stein, New West Guitar Group has been making their mark as a fresh, cutting-edge guitar ensemble. Performing classic popular covers, jazz standards and exciting originals, NWGG combines the acoustic and electric guitar to create their signature sound. Based in Los Angeles and New York, the ensemble tours extensively through the United States and aboard giving concerts and masterclasses.

Graduates of USC’s Thornton School of Music, the trio’s versatility as players and composers have given them the reputation as pioneers in the realm of guitar ensemble.
Praised as “sharp and refined” by the Seattle Times, New West Guitar Group infuses its latest disc ‘Big City’ with its signature blend of laid-back virtuosity and expert arrangements that “sometimes verge on the orchestral” (All Music Guide)

“Smith, Stein and Storie play seamlessly together. Beautiful acoustic rhythms, vibrant classically infused single note lines and jazzy arpeggios cover the magnificent  musical landscape these three players create.” —Metronome Magazine

“Shimmering arpeggios, collectively strummed chords…tight cracking interplay and complementary playing.” —Bill Milkowski, Downbeat Magazine

“The group’s creativity in not being afraid to stretch boundaries is helping to forge a new area of music that should inspire other guitarists…” —Vintage Guitar  Magazine

Ken Peplowski ~ Saxophone & Clarinet Master from NY

with The Ed Dunsavage Trio
featuring Joe Cohoon & Chicken Hirsh
Thursday, October 2 • 7 pm
Jazz at the Vineyard, Paschal Winery (1122 Suncrest Road, Talent, OR)
SOLD OUT!

Siskiyou Music Project Welcomes back one of the finest jazz clarinetists on the planet, Ken Peplowski on Thursday, October 2 at Paschal Winery in Talent at 7 p.m. as part of our “Jazz In The Vineyard” series. Ken will be joined by local favorites The Ed Dunsavage Trio with Joe Cohoon & Chicken Hirsh.

“Ken Peplowski is arguably the greatest living jazz clarinetist” Russell Davies, BBC2 August 2013

Ken Peplowski has recorded approximately 50 CDs as a soloist, and close to 400 as a sideman – some of the artists he’s performed/recorded with include Charlie Byrd, Mel Torme, Rosemary Clooney, Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops, Hank Jones, Peggy Lee, Bill Charlap, Woody Allen, Benny Goodman, and Madonna. He travels at least half of every year, playing clubs, concert halls, colleges, and pops concerts. He has headlined the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, the Blue Note, and Dizzy’s Club amongst many other venues. Ken’s last two CDs on the Capri label, “Noir Blue” and “In Search Of” were released to great critical acclaim and airplay. He has recorded music as diverse as Italian folk songs, avant-garde jazz, pop, and classical music (he recorded the Darius Milhaud Clarinet Concerto with an orchestra in Sofia, Bulgaria). His latest CD is “Maybe September”(Capri Records), recorded with Ted Rosenthal, Martin Wind and Matt Wilson direct to two track and live in the studio. Ken is the current musical director of the Oregon Festival Of American Music (OFAM), and is a longtime performer/consultant to The Jazz Cruise, where he was elected into the Jazz Cruise Hall Of Fame in 2013. He resides in New York City with his wife, dog, and whatever children happen to be passing through. “Mr. Peplowski sounds the way (Benny) Goodman might if he had kept evolving, kept on listening to new music, kept refining his sound, polishing his craft, and expanding his musical purview into the 21st century.” – Will Friedwald in The Wall Street Journal, December 2012

In 2014, Ken was the recipent of the Sarasota Jazz Festival’s “Satchmo” award, given to him for his “unique and enduring contribution to the living history of jazz”; in March, Ken was also given a “Highlights In Jazz” concert in NYC honoring him for “his matchless musical achievements.”

Ed-Dunsavage

chicken-playwright-b&w

Joe-Cohoon