Bill Mays/Marvin Stamm Duo

Sunday, October 4 • 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 presents New York based pianist Bill Mays and trumpeter Marvin Stamm for their first southern Oregon appearance at the Artistic Piano Gallery in Medford on Sunday, October 4 at 7 p.m.

Pianists, composer and arranger Bill Mays, has worked with a who’s-who of jazz greats, including, Buddy Collette, Harold Land, Shelly Manne, Bud Shank, Art Pepper, and the Kenton Jr. Neophonic Orchestra. He was a long-time member of the Bobby Shew Quintet, led a piano-bass-guitar trio featuring Putter Smith and Danny Embrey, Sarah Vaughan, Dionne Warwick, Anita O’Day, Al Jarreau and Frank Sinatra.

He has played such notable New York venues as Birdland, the Blue Note, Bradley’s, Carnegie Hall, Guggenheim Museum, Iridium, Jazz Standard, Lincoln Center, MOMA, Smoke, Steinway Pianos, the Village Gate and the Village Vanguard.

Currently, Bill Mays tours and records in many varied configurations, including this duo with trumpeter Marvin Stamm and his trio (featuring Matt Wilson & Martin Wind). He has many awards and honors as an arranger, pianist and producer, and has been the recipient of performance grants from Meet The Composer, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour.

Throughout his distinguished career, trumpeter Marvin Stamm has been praised for both the art and the craft of trumpet playing. Leonard Feather stated that “Mr. Stamm is an accomplished performer whose technical skill is used as a means to stimulating original ends.”

While attending North Texas State University, a school noted for its innovative lab bands, Mr. Stamm was discovered by Stan Kenton. Upon graduating, he performed with the Kenton’s Orchestra as his jazz trumpet soloist 1961–1962, Recording five albums with the orchestra. In 1965–1966, he toured worldwide with Woody Herman.

Marvin Stamm settled in New York City in late 1966, quickly establishing himself as a busy jazz and studio trumpeter. New York was bustling with jazz activity during that period, and Stamm performed at key venues with many of the significant players in the business. He gained considerable recognition for playing with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra (1966–1972) and The Duke Pearson Big Band (1967–1970), as well as performing with Frank Sinatra (1973-1974) and The Benny Goodman Sextet (1974–1975), among others.

Musette Explosion ~ Parisian Musette Trio

Wednesday September 23 • 7 pm
Music In The Mountains • Old Siskiyou Barn, Ashland
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 presents for the first time in southern Oregon, Musett Explosion at the Old Siskiyou Barn in Ashland at 7 p.m. Featuring three of New York’s most in-demand virtuoso musicians, each with a distinctive voice on his instrument, explore and expand on Parisian musette. They bring this multicultural dancehall music to new places through the highest improvisation communication, emotionally honest performances, and original compositions.
Featuring Will Holshouser on accordion, Ron Horton on trumpet and tuba and David Phillips on bass. All three are in demand players, backing up some of the world’s foremost artists (Regina Carter, David Byrne, Paul Simon, Mark O’connor and others.)

The enchantingly erotic dance music that is musette is the result of a meeting of jazz with French folk styles and Italian instrumentation. All the rage in pre-WWII Paris, musette served as the soundtrack for a Bohemian subculture whose seedy streets and coarse clubs presaged the Beats and spawned virtuosos.

“Classic swing waltzes have been waiting for a project like this…this group does not restructure the repertoire’s foundation; they handle it all in their own way. [Musette Explosion] has respectfully reclaimed 1930s Paris for the 21st Century.”
Aaron Cohen, Downbeat Magazine

“… swings with speed and clarity, sways with mystery and eroticism….Not simply an archaeological paean to past masters, this debut recording from Musette Explosion makes the genre relevant to NYC’s musical landscape.”
Elliott Simon, New York City Jazz Record

Stephanie Trick & Paolo Alderighi ~ Four-Hands Jazz Piano Duo

Wednesday September 16 • 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 kicks off it’s 2015 Fall Concert Series with husband and wife pianists, Stephanie Trick (from St. Louis, Missouri) and Paolo Alderighi (from Milan, Italy) for their first southern Oregon appearance at the Artistic Piano Gallery in Medford on Wednesday, September 16 at 7 p.m.

The two met at a piano festival in Boswil (near Zürich), Switzerland, in 2008 and started to work together in 2011 on a four-hands piano project dedicated to classic jazz, preparing arrangements of songs from the Swing Era, as well as drawing from the Ragtime and Blues repertoire. The convention of four hands on one piano is very common in classical music but a fairly rare occurrence in jazz, due to the fact that jazz is an improvised music.

Following the 2012 release of their first recording project, Two for One, they have been invited to many festivals and events in the US, Europe, and Japan. Their second CD, Sentimental Journey (2014), shows their commitment to the formula of four-hands duets on one piano. Their latest album, Double Trio Live (2015), presents the classic configuration of the jazz trio – piano, bass, and drums – with piano in four hands instead of two. This combination gives Alderighi and Trick the possibility of creating arrangements of songs that include moments in trio for each pianist (which is why the project is called “Double Trio”), in which the stylistic differences between the two emerge in their individual improvisational styles, as well as moments of “tutti,” in which the four-hands duet is sustained by bass and drums.

Alderighi and Trick have performed in a variety of venues in the United States and in Europe, including the Sacramento Music Festival; the West Coast Ragtime Festival in Sacramento; the Monterey Dixieland Jazz Festival, the San Diego Jazz Festival, the Kobe Jazz Street Festival in Kobe, Japan; the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland; the KIG Dixieland Festival in Dresden, Germany; the Ascona Jazz Festival in Ascona, Switzerland; the Bohém Ragtime & Jazz Festival in Kecskemét, Hungary; Teatro Dal Verme Milano, Jazzland Wien, Bülach Jazz Club, Jazz Bistro in Toronto, and other jazz clubs.

“I love to hear Stephanie and Paolo together. They are an inspiration. Such sympatico! Such back-and-forth! Individually they are marvelous musicians—we’ve known that, but together they play 4-handed stride as it’s never been done. Brava, bravo!”
– Dick Hyman
“It is unusual to hear a piano duet that is played by four hands on just one piano. Somehow Stephanie Trick and Paolo Alderighi manage this near-impossible feat without getting in each other’s way. Their playing is very complementary and mutually inspiring with plenty of fireworks being felt along the way. In their individual careers and together in this collaboration, Paolo and Stephanie keep the rich legacies of ragtime, stride piano, and swing alive, fresh and creative. Their CD is a joy from start to finish.”
– Scott Yanow