2009 - 2010 Season of the Charlotte County (Florida) Jazz Society

Great Live Jazz Lives in Florida!

CONCERTS: Performances at Cultural Center Theatre, 2280 Aaron St., Port Charlotte, FL 33952

Monday, October 12, 2009 - DOUBLE CONCERT
Part I – BOB SWITZER QUARTET
Part II - MIKE MARKAVERICH Quintet

Monday, November 9, 2009
MIMI FOX & Trio

Monday, December 14, 2009
BOB LEARY Quartet

Monday, January 11, 2010
The Jazz Legacy BIG Band under direction of DAVID PRUYN

Monday, February 8, 2010
IRA SULLIVAN & Quintet, with DANTE LUCIANI

Monday, March 8, 2010
BILL ALRED & his Classic Jazz Band.

Monday, April 12, 2010
The JIM ROBERTS Saxtet.

Ticket Information at:
CCJAZZ hotline: 941-766-9422
www.ccjazz.org

JAZZ JAMS: JAMS are scheduled for 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. the 4th Sunday of October & November 2009, and January, February, March & April 2010 at PORT CHARLOTTE GOLF CLUB, 22400 Gleneagles Terrace

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Charlotte County Jazz Society 2009 - 2010 Schedule

Monday, October 12, 2009
South Florida Talent Showcase (Double Concert)
Part One: Bob Switzer Quartet
Opening this first-of-the-season concert will be a quartet of Central and South Florida musicians headed by trumpeter Bob Switzer of Clearwater. Switzer is well known around Florida and in the San Francisco jazz scene where he appears as well. His technical mastery of trumpet and flugelhorn have made him first on the speed-dial of other band-leaders around Florida. But especially interesting is the ease with which he navigates the idioms of jazz....from New Orleans to bebop or the coolest and most elegant of standards.

Backing Switzer on guitar is relative newcomer to CCJS, Larry Camp. Camp made his first CCJS appearance this past year with Mike and Kitt Moran's quintet. Camp is from the Tampa Bay area as is bassist Mark Neuenschwander who is quickly becoming a favorite sideman with touring jazz artists who stop over in Florida to perform and record. On drums is Tracy Alexander from Orlando. In case that name sounds familiar, he is the son of jazz great Mousey Alexander, who performed with Benny Goodman, Eddie Condon, and Red Norvo among others.

Part Two: Mike Markaverich Quartet
The second half of the October concert will be a more familiar face. Long time members have seen exhuberant pianist Mike Markaverich and his sidekicks frequently over the years. Known for his amazing chops, inventive solo lines and impish musical humor, Mike has been a fixture on the Sarasota music scene for over two decades. And his story is always worth the retelling.
Sightless since birth, Markaverich attended the Perkins School for the Blind in Nashua, N.H., and for eight years studied nothing but classical piano. In high school he dabbled with rock and roll before enrolling at Dartmouth where he fell in love with jazz after hearing his first Oscar Peterson album. As a result Markaverich switched majors from French to music. He went on to obtain a bachelor in music at Dartmouth and later a Masters degree from the University of New Hampshire. For 10 years Mike did his apprenticeship as a music professional on Cape Cod before heading to the Sunshine State.

Sax man Tony Benade will be with Markaverich in the all-Sarasota quartet along with drummer Johnny Moore. And to add his own unique touch to the proceedings bassist-singer Ernie Williford will bring some of those soulful vocal chops he honed in his five years of playing and singing in clubs on Bourbon Street. Like Markaverich, Ernie is what they call in the club scene....a "house-rocker".


November 9, 2009
Catch A Rising Star: Mimi Fox Trio
California jazz guitarist Mimi Fox will be here on November 9th, 2009 for a debut performance for CCJS. Just a couple years ago she was introduced to Charlotte County at a fund raiser concert for the Arts and Humanities Council. Those of us fortunate enough to hear her knew we had to bring her back for an appearance in our CCJS Artists Series.

Mimi maintains a hectic touring schedule, playing major festivals from New York to Tokyo. Stateside, she has headlined at elite venues such as The Blue Note, Merkin Concert Hall, and the Village Gate in New York City, The Regattabar and Scullers in Boston, The Kennedy Center and Blues Alley in Washington D.C., the Triple Door and Jazz Alley in Seattle, and Yoshi's and the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.

Mimi has released eight highly acclaimed albums as a leader, including her two most recent on the Favored Nations label. In 2003 and 2004 she was voted the International Critics Poll winner in Downbeat magazine under the Rising Star category. She has put in plenty of time in the studio on other artists' recordings as well, including Charlie Byrd, Branford Marsalis, Diana Krall, Abbey Lincoln, Kevin Mahogany and Joey DeFrancesco.
Mimi will be appearing with a trio in her concert.

December 14, 2009
The Bob Leary Quartet
For the past 4 years, guitarist Bob Leary of Naples has been a featured All-Star for the JazzFest at Sea cruises. On Monday December 14 he'll bring a quartet fresh from his fifth appearance there featuring three masters of traditional jazz in Alan Vache (clarinet), Davy Jones (cornet) and Phil Flannigan (bass). He has played jazz festivals in Tahiti, Germany, France, Britain, Canada, and the Caesarea Jazz Festival in Israel. In 2010, he'll be working at festivals around the United States, with the Midiri Brothers, Jeff Barnhard's band, and many others, including his own.

He's had the honor of recording several CD's with Woody Allen's musical director, Dick Hyman, in New York; performing with Carol Channing in Hello Dolly; and playing on more than 100 recordings with many of the most famous names in traditional jazz.

January 11, 2010
Big Band Jazz Night: The Jazz Legacy Big Band
Jazz fans can likely remember the great Monday Night "rehearsal bands" of Thad Jones/Mel Lewis which were often recorded and performed weekly at the Village Vanguard in New York City for many years. Well musical director and multi-instrumentalist David Pruyn has made Monday nights a rehearsal-band night for several years in the Tampa Bay area. Many of the top players in central Florida traveled from Orlando, Tampa and St Pete to keep the flame alive and read through the great arrangements in the libraries of musicians gathered over decades.

This is a band focused on just good old fashioned swinging. They are connected and committed to maintaining the tradition and the roots of the jazz big band and as Ella used to sing: "It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing". On a side note musical director David Pruyn, in addition to being a gifted multi-instrumentalist, is an accomplished vocalist who has appeared before at CCJS with his Mel Torme tribute vocal show in October of 2007.

February 8, 2010
Jazz Legends Night: Ira Sullivan Quintet
World-renowned multi-instrumentalist Ira Sullivan comes with a trunk-full of wind instruments and gifted long-time sidekick Dante Luciani (trombone). Count on hearing brilliant and inspired forrays on trumpet, flugelhorn, alto and soprano flute, and tenor and soprano sax. The rhythm section will be familiar as well with Vince Evans (bass), James Martin (drums) and Jerry Stawski (piano).

As a youngster in the 1950's Sullivan cut his teeth playing with jazz legends like Charlie Parker, Roy Eldridge, and Lester Young. He would go on to perform with such luminaries as Art Blakey and Red Rodney with whom he co-led one of the most celebrated and innovative bands in jazz. Eventually Ira took up permanent residence in Miami Florida, where he became a jazz landmark, as well as educator and mentor to rising young talents like Jaco Pastorius and Pat Matheny.

CCJS takes great pride in presenting Sullivan in his eleventh appearance here in twenty years. No other organization in Florida has been more consistently supportive of this artist who is a national treasure of the jazz world. Don't miss this performance. The world is full of bright young talent, but there's only one Ira Sullivan.



March 8, 2010
Bill Allred's Classic Jazz Band
You may ask: what are we going to hear at a concert of Bill Allred and his eight-piece Classic Jazz Band? As Bill puts it, you are apt to hear anything from Jelly Roll Morton to Count Basie and all the stops in between.
In it's 20th year of existence, the band started essentially as a "kicks" band, collecting and playing the arrangements of Matty Matlock and Billy Maxted. After performing at a few jazz festivals, they realized that there was a real market for their "little big band" type of sound. That was more than 19 years and 13 recordings ago. The band uses the five-horn front line typical of such bands as those of Matty Matlock, Billy Maxted and Red Nichols, and of course the self-styled World’s Greatest Jazz Band of Yank Lawson and Bob Haggart.

Bill Allred’s Classic Jazz Band has appeared at jazz festivals and concerts in Sacramento, Palm Springs and Mammoth Lakes, California; Davenport, Iowa; Madison, LaCrosse and Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Sun Valley, Idaho; the Jazz Café at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.; Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore; and in theaters and jazz clubs all over the country.
Overseas trips have taken them to Hong Kong, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, England, Scotland, Italy and South America. In Rome, they performed a benefit for the World Food Program at the Jazz Club Alpheus. They have also been the featured band on several Jazzdagen cruises and on the Mississippi Queen riverboat.

April 12, 2010
Jim Roberts and The Saxtet
In 1991 Jim Roberts made the decision to move from the "Big Apple" to Orlando, Florida where he has established himself as one of the most in-demand pianists around. One of the projects he initiated since arriving was the group that will be here on April 12. "The Jim Roberts Saxtet" has been at crowd favorite for many years at CCJS and has recorded two CDs: Reflection and Live in Central Florida.

An Illinois native, Roberts first broke into the business of playing jazz piano in the musical pressure cooker of New York City in the late 1970s, where he worked steadily and recorded with bebop trumpet star Howard McGee. In his spare time he arranged to study with another jazz legend, pianist Roland Hanna.

In the 1980s after the death of McGee, Roberts continued gigging regularly in New York, working with such heavyweights as saxmen Buddy Tate, Pepper Adams, Lee Konitz, Harold Ashby, Paul Gonsalves, Jimmy McPartland; trumpeters Thad Jones, Dizzy Gillespie; bassists Milt Hinton, Ron Carter; drummers, Philly Joe Jones, Joe Morello, Tootie Heath; and singers Joe Williams, Helen Humes, Maxine Sullivan, and Joe Carroll.

These days in addition to his jazz and freelance work around Florida, Jim can be heard playing piano behind the improv comedy troup at the Comedy Warehouse at Disney World's Pleasure Island.

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Posted by:
Jazz & Blues Florida
www.JazzBluesFlorida.com
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