BAND BIO - Velvet Gentlemen
| Dan Willis | Chuck MacKinnon | Pete McCann | Ron Oswanski | Stephan Crump | Kermitt Driscoll | John Hollenbeck |
Dan Willis Dan Willis, one of New York City’s most active and versatile woodwind specialists, performs regularly across a wide spectrum of music from Jazz to New Music. He is currently a member of composer, David Chesky's “Area 31,” which Classics Today defines as, "A new modern downtown Manhattan chamber ensemble of all young star virtuosos." And, recently, Dan served as a featured performer on traditional Armenian folk double-reed instruments, the Dukuk and the Zurna, at the New York premiere of “Strophes,” a work composed and conducted by Yakov Koslov. Both of these endeavors attest to the rich vocabulary within Dan’s musical language. .
In addition to his work in the classical genre, he has toured Japan and the U.S. with Michael Brecker's Grammy winning Ensemble 'Quindectet', toured with Don Henley, and performed at Madison Square Garden with Clay Aiken. Dan is also a member of the Grammy nominated John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble and recently recorded on the Duduk as a featured artist for the new Rob Thomas solo CD single “All That I Am.”(Grammy nominated) As a much sought after woodwind doubler, Dan has played on ten Broadway Cast Recordings and is currently performing in the hit Broadway Musical, “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.” (Grammy nominated)
Mr. Willis’ work can also be heard on T.V jingles for E-Bay, Snapple and Hershey's, as well as “Monday Night Football,“ Nick Jr.'s, “The Backyardigans,'“ and ESPN’s Roger Maris documentary. On the big screen, Dan has contributed to the film scores for Joe Gould's Secret and the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival's critically acclaimed, The American Ruling Class and has performed as a featured extra in the motion picture, Mona Lisa Smiles. Dan is also a frequent collaborator to the Baby Einstein Classical Music Educational Series performing on Flute, Oboe, English Horn and Clarinet.
A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Dan studied the Oboe with Dr. Richard Killmer, Jazz with Bill Dobbins and Ramon Ricker, and arranging with Rayburn Wright.
Mr. Willis has just completed his third solo CD, 'Velvet Gentlemen' (OmniTone) 2006 where Dan recorded seven different instruments including the Suona and the Zurna.
Chuck MacKinnon Chuck has a Bachelor of Music degree from William Patterson College in Wayne, NJ and a Masters in Music Composition from California State University at Hayward. He is on faculty at the Stanford Jazz Workshop and the Lafayette Summer Music Workshop. Chuck has been making a living playing the trumpet for the last 15 years and has over 20 CD credits to his name. Chuck is currently mixing the music for the debut of his psychedelic trumpet/bass/drums trio, Spielplatz, which recently performed in Heidelberg, Germany.
Chuck was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area; and currently resides in New York City where he leads his own bands and is in constant demand as a sideman in many jazz, rock, pop, and hip hop bands. He has also performed around the world with many of the top names in jazz including the Duke Ellington Orchestra, the Cab Calloway Orchestra, Joe Henderson, James Moody, Rufus Reid, the Groove Collective, Randy Brecker, Mark Levine, Bruce Forman, Sam Rivers, New York Horns, and many others.
He is pioneering many new sounds for the trumpet, often experimenting with delay, distortion, and live samples. Chuck is also in demand as a composer having completed five commissions for big band.
Pete McCann Jazz guitarist Pete McCann has been an integral part of the New York City scene for over 15 years.
He currently leads an exciting new group of New York's finest jazz artists on his latest CD, Most Folks, which is due out on Omnitone Records in the Spring of 2006. His first two CDs, Parable and You Remind Me Of Someone, were released by Palmetto Records and widely praised by top jazz critics.
McCann is one of the first-call sidemen in New York. He works in several groups including the John McNeil Quartet, New York Nonet, Dan Willis Sextet, Chris Tarry Group and the Heather Bennett Quintet. Pete has performed with some of the greats in jazz: Kenny Wheeler, Dave Liebman, Kenny Garrett, Peter Erskine, Gary Thomas, Greg Osby, Brian Blade, and the Maria Schneider Orchestra. He has appeared on over 45 CDs including: I Think It's Going To Rain Today, Curtis Stigers; The Other Side Of Ellington, the Palmetto All-Stars; Standard Wonder (The Music Of Stevie Wonder), Dave Pietro; Round 'Bout Now, George Schuller; and Phase 2, Mahavishnu Project.
Pete's playing encompasses a wide variety of musical styles and genres -- Straight-ahead, Post-Bop, Avant-Garde, Latin, Jazz-Rock Fusion. He has performed throughout the US, Canada and Europe from clubs to jazz festivals, musicals, award shows, and even an opera.
McCann received the Ed Casias Memorial Scholarship for three years while attending the University of North Texas. There, he graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree. Among Pete's instructors was jazz guitar pedagogue Jack Petersen. In 1988, he attended the Banff Summer Jazz Workshop in Alberta, Canada, where he studied with Dave Holland, Kenny Wheeler, Muhal Richard Abrams, Kevin Eubanks and others. Pete teaches guitar at The New School and City College in New York City. He is a native of Eau Claire, Wisconsin and lives with his wife and two sons in New Jersey.
Ron Oswanski Originally from Toledo, Ohio, Ron decided to stay on the east coast after earning his degree at Manhattan School of Music. He has toured with trumpet great Maynard Ferguson as well as the jazz/pop/fusion recording artists, Blood Sweat and Tears. Ron can be heard on various recordings with these artists. He is an avid composer and arranger as well.
Stephan Crump Memphis-bred bassist Stephan Crump is among the latest generation of up-and-coming players on the NYC jazz scene. As a sideman with mainstream jazz stars, downtown explorers, singer/songwriters and others, he has become known for the elegance and purposeful groove of his acoustic and electric bass playing. As a composer, he is emerging as a singular voice.Shunning barriers of musical genre, Stephan has performed and recorded in the US and across the globe with a diverse list of musicians- from Motown legends Ashford and Simpson to Portishead's Dave McDonald, The Violent Femmes' Gordon Gano, Michael McDonald, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Tom Chapin, Mahavishnu Project, Big Ass Truck, Dave Liebman, Billy Hart, Sonny Fortune, Eddie Henderson, Ernie Watts, Greg Osby, Kenny Werner, Marvin Stamm, Frank Foster, Bobby Previte, and late blues legend Johnny Clyde Copeland.
Currently, Stephan can be heard as a long-standing member of the Vijay Iyer Quartet, the Liberty Ellman Quartet, Joel Harrison's Free Country, and singer/songwriter Jen Chapin's band.
While maintaining a busy schedule as a sideman, including regular studio work for film, television, and radio, Stephan remains intensely involved with composing and performing his own music. His compositions can be heard in Miramax, HBO, Showtime, Bravo, and Simple Focus Films, as well as on his two albums as a leader, Poems and Other Things and Tuckahoe, the latter of which, in addition to receiving enthusiastic reviews, has been number one on several jazz radio playlists across the country. Stephan is currently finishing his latest album, this time in a string trio setting with long-time allies, guitarists Jamie Fox and Liberty Ellman. In addition to writing, arranging and producing his own music, Stephan has recently expanded his role as producer and arranger into his long-time collaboration with singer/songwriter Jen Chapin -first, for her debut Hybrid Recordings release, Linger, and now for her follow-up album whose production will begin in the summer of 2005.
Stephan was raised in music. His mother, an amateur pianist from Paris, and his Memphis-born father, an architect and jazz drummer, provided a home that was rich in their two native cultures, French and Southern. After several years of classical piano study and two years with the alto saxophone, Stephan picked up the bass guitar at age thirteen and was soon playing in a variety of groups, performing in festivals, and touring the Southeastern U. S. By the end of high school he was leading his own jazz/rock trio, which performed and recorded his original compositions.
Stephan received his Bachelor of Music degree from Amherst College, where he studied under Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Lewis Spratlin and was awarded the Sundquist Prize for performance and composition. While at Amherst he began studying the acoustic bass, with a focus on classical training that culminated in a year of study abroad in Paris with Gary Karr-protégé Patrick Hardouineau. Stephan's jazz studies at Amherst included work with jazz greats Max Roach, Frank Foster, and Ray Drummond. Upon leaving Amherst, he toured the U.S. and Canada with the Tommy Dorsey Band before moving to New York. After arriving in New York, Stephan continued his studies with bass virtuoso Michael Moore
Kermitt Driscoll Kermit James Driscoll was born on March 4th of 1956 in Kearney Nebraska, beginning his musical life playing piano at age 5. Soon after he added saxophone and at age 13 picked up the electric bass. Almost immediately he was playing gigs around the midwest. When an offer to travel with a rock band came up he dropped out of high school at age 16 to go on tour. Later he resumed high school at Interlocken Arts Academy where he played in the Studio Orchestra. In Sept. 1974 he enrolled in the University of Miami and was fortunate to study with Jaco Pastorius. In the following year he went to the Berklee College of Music where he completed his degree graduating with honors.
In May of 1978 Kermit went to Belgium to play with Stephan Houben who at the time was working with Bill Frisell. It was with this group that he made his first recording. It was also at this time that he met his future wife Michelle with whom he married in Dec. 1979. In January of 1980 he came to New York, and soon after got the bass chair of Buddy Rich's band and toured with that band from November 1981 - 1986. It was in this experience that played and met with lots of great musicians, and supported his family doing music along with occassion odd jobs to make ends meet. Michelle & Kermit had their first son, Mike in 1980 and then Eric in 1984. Bill Frisell formed his group in 1986 along with Joey Baron and Hank Roberts and for the next 10 years that was the centerpiece of his musical life. He also co-led the group New and Used with Dave Douglas and Andy Laster from 1989 thru 1992. After Bill Frisell's group subsided he continued to earn a living playing the bass. There have! been lots of Broadway shows, club dates, sessions and teaching at SUNY and the New School. He maintains a number of creative outlets, continuing to write and occasionally perform his own music. In 1994 he began a Qigong practice and currently teaches it (Dahnhak) on a volunteer basis.
John Hollenbeck John Hollenbeck’s versatility as a percussionist and composer is revealed in a body of work that challenges countless boundaries. Performances with Fred Hersh, Achim Kaufmann and Bob Brookmeyer have showcased Hollenbeck's melodic and sensitive small‑group jazz drumming. His unique approach to big band work is evident as a member of Bob Brookmeyer's New Art Orchestra, the BMI Orchestra, Jim McNeely’s Tentet and as a frequent guest with the Village Vanguard Orchestra. He has performed and recorded with the WDR Big Band and the Maritime Jazz Orchestra with soloists John Taylor, Kenny Wheeler and Norma Winstone. John’s rock-infused drumming can be heard on recordings with the Cuong Vu Trio with Stomu Takeishi.
Hollenbeck's performance career stretches far beyond jazz. He has performed a variety of traditional musics from around the world, including klezmer performances with David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness and Frank London (of the Klezmatics), projects in Colombia with Antonio Arnedo, in Argentina with Fernando Tarres and with Astor Piazzolla’s pianist, Pablo Ziegler, at Carnegie Hall.
As a composer, Hollenbeck combines elements of his experiences in jazz and world music. The recipient of a B.M. in Percussion (1990) and a M.M. in Jazz Composition (1991) from the Eastman School of Music, Hollenbeck has received many awards and commissions including a National Endowment grant to study composition with Bob Brookmeyer (1994) and a Meet the Composer's Grant in 1995 and 2001. He won the Jazz Composers Alliance Composition Contest in 1995 and 2002 and was awarded the 2002 IAJE Gil Evans Fellowship and 2003 IAJE/ASCAP Commission. Hollenbeck was also awarded a grant from Arts International to travel with his Claudia Quintet to Brazil in the spring of 2002.
Exceptionally creative and versatile, John continues to create a passionate new musical language based on world rhythms, lyricism, and spirituality: he composed The Shape of Spirit, a piece for wind ensemble which was issued on the Mons label in 1998, and in1999 composed Processional and Desiderata for wind ensemble and orator. This composition, written for and featuring the voice and trombone of Bob Brookmeyer, was released on Challenge Records in 2001. The Cloud of Unknowing, commissioned by the Bamberg Choir in Germany was released in September 2001on the Edel Classics label along with works by J.S. Bach, Igor Stravinsky & Paul Hindemith. Hollenbeck’s most recent chamber piece Demütig Bitten, was commissioned by the Windsbachner Knabenchor (Germany) and released on December 2004 on the Rondeau label along with works by Giovanni Gabrieli, Josquin des Prez and J.S. Bach. He is currently writing a new commission for the Bang On a Can All-Stars.
In January 2002, John’s IAJE Gil Evans Fellowship Commission piece, A Blessing, featuring vocalist Theo Bleckmann, was performed to critical acclaim at the IAJE Conference; and in January 2003 his IAJE/ASCAP Commission, Folkmoot, was premiered in Toronto, Canada. John composed and performed the percussion score to Meredith Monk's Magic Frequencies and her newest work, Mercy, which was released on the ECM label in October 2002.
John released three discs on the CRI jazz imprint Blueshift in the winter of 2001/2002. The album no images presents an eclectic composer’s statement featuring Ray Anderson, Dave Liebman, Ben Monder, Ellery Eskelin, the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others (October 2001). No images was voted one of “the best jazz records of 2001" by Gary Giddins of the Village Voice. Quartet Lucy offers a union of spacious, understated, ethereal, and spiritual moods which reflect the influences of Brazilian and other world music folk traditions (January 2002); and The Claudia Quintet release showcases tremendous wit, tasteful improvisation, strong melodies and equally strong grooves (January 2002). This recording was voted one of the “ten best releases of 2002" by JazzTimes magazine. In 2004, the Claudia Quintet released its second recording, I, Claudia, on Cuneiform Records. This recording received 4 stars from DownBeat Magazine. In February 2! 005, John has release his first large ensemble recording, A Blessing on Omnitone Records. His 2nd large ensemble recording will be released in August on Intuition Records with Jazz Big Band Graz. The Claudia Quintet will release it’s 3rd recording (2nd on Cuneiform Records) in September 2005. John’s music is a bold attempt to combine a wealth of experience into a style that is as accessible as it is advanced.