The Music of Duke Ellington with Nick Rossi’s Jazzopaters

San Francisco guitarist Nick Rossi is one of the world’s foremost experts on pre–World War II jazz, both as a practitioner and a scholar. A few years ago he traveled to Paris for the International Duke Ellington Meeting, a three-day conference for historians, musicians, and devotees of Ellingtonia. Rossi delivered a talk on guitarist Fred Guy, a key member of the Ellington Orchestra from 1925 to 1949, and after spending time with some of his favorite authors and researchers, he returned home with a nagging question and the seed of his next musical mission.

The Bay Area was clearly in need of a band devoted to the small-group music recorded by Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and the orchestra’s featured soloists, including baritone saxophonist Harry Carney, altoist Johnny Hodges, and trumpeter Cootie Williams. The result was the nine-piece Jazzopaters, which has been delighting audiences and dancers at the region’s finest clubs and venues for the past two years. Featuring many of the Bay Area’s finest improvisers, the group proudly keeps seldom-performed gems by the incomparable Ellington in circulation.

https://nickrossimusic.com/

Personnel (subject to change):

• Patrick Wolff, alto sax & clarinet
• Nathan Tokunaga, clarinet & tenor sax
• Kamrin Ortiz, baritone sax & clarinet
• James Dunning, trumpet
• Victor Imbo, trombone
• Adam Shulman, piano
• Nick Rossi, guitar
• Mikiya Matsuda, bass
• Riley Baker, drums