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Meet Bassist Hannah Marks
by Sanford Josephson
Growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, Hannah Marks started off playing guitar. “I didn't really take to the instrument," she recalled, “so I picked up the cello in fourth grade. I was shy and wanted to be in the background." She discovered jazz when the middle school jazz band performed at her elementary school. So, she ...
Meet Pianist Caelan Cardello
by Sanford Josephson
On November 16, 2019, the Giants of Jazz concert at the South Orange Performing Arts Center honored the late pianist and educator Harold Mabern, who died two months earlier on September 17. The majority of performers that night were recognizable jazz veterans, but there were also some memorable performances by young upcoming artists. One of those ...
Meet Vocalist G. Thomas Allen
by Sanford Josephson
When G. Thomas Allen was a freshman vocal performance major at Baltimore's Morgan State University, he initially concentrated on classical music, “because of my range. I'm classified as a countertenor (a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of the female contralto or mezzo-soprano voices). I was really more connected ...
Meet Violinist Daisy Castro
by Sanford Josephson
Jazz guitarist Stephane Wrembel first saw violinist Daisy Castro play nine years ago when she was 15. “Her tone," he said, “was already powerful. Her rhythmical placement, her intonation were already unreal. And, most importantly, her soul pours out music and shows amazing creativity, poetry, imagination, dreams." I saw Castro for the first time ...
Jarrod Lawson Heads For Europe
by Peter Jones
Timing is everything in music, but launching an album in the midst of a global pandemic was not ideal for singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Jarrod Lawson. As he prepares to embark on a European tour, he will finally get the chance to feature the music from his second album Be the Change in front of live ...
Meet Pianist Sean Mason
by Sanford Josephson
Sean Mason got a late start on piano. He began playing at age 13 after first trying trombone and percussion. As a result, he said, “I didn't apply to any music schools for college. I just decided to go about 1 ½ hours from where I lived (in Charlotte, NC) to the University of North Carolina ...
Baritone Saxophonist Tate Hanlon: Winner of Gerry’s Jazz Challenge
by Sanford Josephson
The names of the judges in the Gerry & Franca Mulligan Foundation's Gerry's Jazz Challenge competition among high school music students were kept anonymous. The results, though, were anything but mysterious. The contestants were judged on five categories: notes, sound, technique, intonation, and presentation. Tate Hanlon, a senior at Fairview High School in Fairview, ...
Meet Vocalist Gabrielle Cavassa
by Sanford Josephson
For the first time in its nine-year history, the Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Competition named two winners of its annual contest: 26-year-old Gabrielle Cavassa of New Orleans and 25-year-old Tawanda Seussbrich-Joaquim of Los Angeles. The finals for the 2020 competition, originally scheduled for November 2020, were postponed by the pandemic and held on June 6, 2021, ...
Meet Vocalist Lucy Wijnands
by Sanford Josephson
Contestants in the fourth annual Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Vocal Competition, sponsored by the Blues Alley Jazz Society, were asked to sing three selections from the 1964 Verve album, Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Johnny Mercer Song Book. That request, said Lucy Wijnands, the winner, was “a gift from heaven. Johnny Mercer is absolutely my favorite composer."
Meet Pianist Tyler Henderson and Trumpeter Summer Camargo
by Sanford Josephson
Growing up in Oneonta, New York, Tyler Henderson “noodled around for five years on a piano that a church donated to my family. I learned to play older rock songs by ear--stuff from Chicago and The Beatles. Then, in seventh grade, I heard the Vince Guaraldi Charlie Brown Christmas album (Fantasy, 1965). I was really intrigued. ...
