Results for "jazz"

Kenne Thomas

Born: September, 1953

Drummer, composer, and author, Kenne Thomas is the son of Chicago bebop saxophonist, Jimmy “Bouncy” Whitehead. Influenced by family friends, Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt he began his musical career in his hometown of Chicago performing with notable musicians, Jodie Christian, Ari Brown, Adam Rudolph the Charles Walton Big Band, and the Black Artists Group. In the early 70’s Kenne moved to Minnesota where he performed with pianist, Jimmy Bowman Trio. Attending Moorhead State University, he played around the region with the R & B horn band, AIRTIGHT. After graduating with a degree in Music Education, he joined the Jerry Lakes Memories of Elvis Supershow which toured throughout the US and in Europe. Kenne went to Japan, in 1979 to perform, with the Pullman-West Band, out of Detroit

Karuna Shinsho

Born: March 19, 1968

Born in Hawaii to Japanese parents, Karuna grew up surrounded by music. Her father, a classical music singer and DJ, regularly took her to concerts as a child. When she moved to Japan, Karuna fell in love with jazz after she saw the late Nancy Wilson sing at a club in Tokyo. She was blown away by the heart-wrenching interpretation of the master vocalist's signature song "Guess Who I Saw Today". Karuna also became obsessed with bossa nova after hearing the music of João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim.

Prior to Karuna's journey as a musical artist and lyricist, she was a recognized face in broadcast journalism, first on Japan's NHK Television, then later on other international networks, inlcuding Asia Business News, CNN International, and Australian Broadcasting Corporation. For fifteen years Karuna was seen by millions of viewers around the world and highly commended at the Asian Television Awards as Best News Presenter.

JustKing Jones

Born: December 13

JustKing Jones is a saxophonist, composer, and producer known for his powerful blend of jazz, Caribbean rhythm, and gospel influence. 

Emerging from the vibrant New York jazz scene, he has crafted a sound that is both deeply rooted and forward-facing—connecting tradition to innovation with every note.

His unforgettable tone and genre-fluid approach have brought him to stages around the world, performing with artists such as Ms. Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, Gorillaz, Yasiin Bey, Talib Kweli, and Grammy Award-winner Bilal. 

Whether leading his own ensemble or collaborating with visionary artists, Jones delivers performances that are spiritually charged, rhythmically rich, and emotionally healing.

Jesse Dietschi

Born: 1987

The worlds of classical and jazz collide as Canadian bassist Jesse Dietschi presents works that defy genre. With credits ranging from orchestral soloist to jazz session player, Dietschi is equally fluent in both musical idioms as a bassist, composer, and bandleader. He has toured globally with artists and groups including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Nick Maclean Quartet, Tunnel Six, Abraxas, and Ken Lavigne, and is the Principal Bassist of the string orchestra Sinfonia Toronto. Dietschi performs frequently with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Canadian Opera Company as an extra section bassist, jazz bassist, and electric bassist, and has served as guest Principal Bassist with the Niagara Symphony. He will be releasing his debut recording as a bandleader, Gradient, in October 2023.

Amanda Suwondo

Originally from Yogyakarta, Indonesia, pianist Amanda Suwondo started learning keyboard at the age of five. She started learning classical music during high school, doing grades, and playing at church. She then took her career as a musician to the next level in 2010 when she moved to Sydney, Australia and got inspired by Judy Bailey who later became her mentor.

Amanda finished her bachelor degree in Jazz Performance at Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2016, learning under some Australia’s well-known jazz players such as, Judy Bailey, Matt McMahon, Steve Brien, Mike Rivett, Simon Barker, David Theak, Kevin Hunt and Mike Nock.

Amanda has been playing in a lot of different venues around Sydney and New South Wales, such as The Vanguard, Metro Theatre, Foundry 616, Johnston Street Jazz and Mary’s Underground playing her original music with her band

Katharine Timoney

Born: May 22, 1990

Katharine Timoney is a jazz vocalist and songwriter from Northern Ireland. She is the recent winner of the BBC NI Platform Award in the Jazz Category sponsored by The Arts Council of Northern Ireland. As part of the award, she performed her songs with The Ulster Orchestra at a BBC concert in The Ulster Hall, Belfast in May 2019 and also at the BBC NI Proms in 2020. Katharine released her debut album ‘Man of Mine’ in 2016 and regularly performs at jazz festivals, most notably Cork Guinness Jazz Festival and Sligo Jazz Project. Katharine has recently recorded her next record with producer Ben Castle due for release in 2021.

Blue Rainbow

The project was born in March 2020, during the lockdown period, from an idea of ​​three musicians from the Marche region: Pierfrancesco Ceregioli (piano and keyboards), Tonino Monachesi (guitars, bass and flute) and Roberto Bisello (drums). The trio's mission is to embark on a new artistic path where distance is not an obstacle to creativity, stimulated by the challenge of recreating interplay in an unnatural situation such as distance. Knowledge and conscious use of technology is therefore a fundamental professional requirement for the contemporary artist. The idea is to recreate, despite the objective difficulties, an open ensemble thanks to the communicative, technical and expressive potential that the new technological means make available. The name of the project comes from the mixture of all these uniqueness: the presence of several artists, the blue intended as a primary color of the rainbow that mixes with the others in infinite shades of styles and sensations, the blue of the variable pitch notes of the blues (blue note), the main theme of the record work, re-proposed in a kaleidoscope of colors.

Tristan Banks

Born: November 28, 1971

Tristan Banks has built a reputation as a knowledgeable, versatile and authentic world-class drummer and percussionist throughout his 30-year career as a recording artist and session musician. He has worked with many artists covering a wide field of musical genres including Roy Ayers, Steve Winwood, Dave Valentin, Beverley Knight, Hexagonal, David Gilmour, Peter King, Lewis Taylor, Guy Barker, Marcos Valle, Liane Carroll, Snowboy, Terry Callier, Da Lata, Jim Mullen, Carleen Anderson and Mayra Andrade, Ben  Hillier (U2, Depeche Mode, Blur), Mike Lindup (Level 42), Hamish Stuart (Average White Band), Steve Howe (Yes), The Lion King (UK tour), Thriller Live (European, Brazilian tours), MC Conrad, Alexander O'Neal, Ive Mendes, Chico Cesar and Joe Lee Wilson (Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins).

As a touring artist he has performed in many of the world’s top venues including Royal Festival Hall, Central Park (NYC), Royal Albert Hall, Joe’s Pub (NYC), Queen Elizabeth Hall, Hammersmith Odeon, Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, North Sea Jazz Festivals, Shepherds Bush Empire, Blue Note (Tokyo), V Festival, Reading Festival, WOMAD Festivals and Glastonbury Festival.

Larry Wolf

Veteran singer and character actor Lawrence (Larry) Wolf was born in New York City, studied acting with Stella Adler and is best known as an ensemble member of filmmaker Robert Downey Sr.’s legendary catalog of satirical films. The two most notable, Putney Swope and Pound, are avant-garde and shocking today, perhaps even more so than in the febrile artistic ground of the 1960s and 70s when they were created. In Pound, he was Robert Downey Jr.’s acting partner in the five-year-old’s first onscreen speaking role, Wolf’s anguished Mexican Hairless lamenting to Downey Jr.’s not-so-innocent puppy in a film in which clothed and unmasked humans play canines languishing in a dog lockup, waiting to be gassed that night

Dom Angelo Mongiovi

Born: March 4, 1982

Guitarist, producer and researcher, master and PhD in music from the University of Aveiro (Portugal), Dom Angelo Mongiovi covers a versatility of works related to the artistic universe.Early in his career he released two albums with the band Mula Manca & Fabulosa Figura, O Circo da Solidão (2004) and Amor & Pastel (2007). Then he visited the work of Chico Buarque de Holanda with the band Seu Chico, launching the DVD Tem Mais Samba (2010) in partnership with Canal Brasil.As a "band leader", acting in the area of ​​jazz and instrumental music, he released three albums: Dom Angelo Jazz Combo (2010), Porto (2015), Mongiovi Trio (2020) and Mongiovi Trio II (2025)