West Coast Jazz

Tom Hoffmann, composer at the Rejoice in the Truth Jazz Symphony commissioned by Dr. Chris White Radford University, VA 2009, Tom at Maine Public Broadcasting Network, Tom at Brubeck Institute Inaugural Composition Class at the University of the Pacific, California

Thank you for attending our 2021 Jazz Day Event.

See you next year!

These musicians are so good you must go have a listen at our past events to see what we mean! Go to top of page click on events and press past events on the menu. Please see their bios below.

Honored to be part of the energy of Jazzday that pervades all the lands with joy, friendship, peace and to share these fabulous musicians with the world!

Jazz Day 10, 2021!

Our Fabulous Musicians

Ken Labrecque

Ken Labrecque Biography

Ken Labrecque attended the University of Maine at Augusta, graduating with the first class of the Bachelors of Jazz and Contemporary music. Labrecque studied classical guitar under Tom Hoffmann, Keith Crook and David Leisner. Ken studied jazz guitar with Tony Gaboury, Gary Whitner, and Tom Hoffman. He has taught at Fryeburg, Gould and Hebron Academies, the University of Maine at Augusta and Farmington, and the Maine Jazz Camp.

Ken is currently the Instructor of Guitar at Bates College, where he has taught since 1987, and is a music teacher in the Mt Blue Regional School District. Ken was the Director of Music for Dirigo High School from 2001 - 2017. He is an active performer of classical and jazz guitar.

Victor Patton

Bio: Victor A. Patton -- a musician and journalist based in California's Central Valley with Alabama roots, is pleased to Celebrate Jazz Day 2021 and is always ready to entertain. He can be reached at victorpattonblues@gmail.com.

Karl Evangelista and Rei Scampavia

Karl Evangelista - guitar, voice, drums, samples, misc.

Rei Scampavia - synth, voice, drums, misc.

Grex is an art rock/experimental music duo based out of Oakland, California. In biological terms, a "grex" is an entity composed of several smaller organisms. Grex (the band) explores the meeting point between surreal songcraft and the dark outer reaches of experimental music. The group has been called an "otherworldly experience" (Eugene Weekly) and "true genre warping music" (KFJC), recalling at turns the ecstatic energy of John Coltrane, the electronic squall of Death Grips, and the lilting indie rock of Mitski.

Grex has performed at The Great American Music Hall, Slim's (SF), Myra Melford's New Frequnices Festival, The Switchboard Music Festival, The Sonic Circuits Festival (DC), and the United States of Asian America Festival, and organized two Lockdown Festivals in the midst of the 2020 coronavirus quarantine. The band has worked with Fred Frith, Tony Levin (Stick Men), Marshall Trammell (Black Spirituals), Scott Amendola (Nels Cline, TJ Kirk), and Asian Improv aRts, and Evangelista is an active improvising guitarist alongside the likes of Louis Moholo-Moholo, Oliver Lake, Ben Goldberg, Alexander Hawkins, and Trevor Watts.

grexsounds.com

Doug Munro

Doug Munro is a critically acclaimed New York-based jazz guitarist. Since 1986 he has released 19 albums as a leader and has appeared on over 100 recordings as a sideman, producer, and arranger, working with artists like Dr. John, Michael Brecker, and Dr. Lonnie Smith. He has over 75 published compositions and over 300 recorded arrangements to his credit.

In the recording field, Doug has received two Grammy nominations and two NAIRD awards.

His 2011 release, A Very Gypsy Christmas was a top 5 pick by the Wall Street Journal. Amazon.com picked Boogaloo to Beck, which he arranged, co-produced, and on which he played, as a Top Ten Jazz CD of 2003. Doug also did orchestration on the Oscar-winning documentary film When We Were Kings. His latest CD released in 2017, The Harry Warren Songbook, has received rave reviews and is still receiving strong airplay.

He has written four books on jazz improvisation for Warner Brothers Publications and Alfred Music Publications, including one entitled, From Swing to Bebop, which won the Music and Sound Retailers instructional book of the year award in 2000. His latest book, The Total Latin Guitarist (Alfred Publishing) was released in 2010.

Doug now writes exclusively for online publications and instructional websites. He contributes guitar instruction articles for Premier Guitar magazine and is a teaching/artist contributor for TrueFire.com where he has two online instructional courses and his own dedicated subscriber channel called Doug Munro’s Guitar Garage.

Munro created and directed the Jazz Studies Program at The Conservatory of Music at Purchase College in 1993 and is now Professor Emeritus. He has been an artist/instructor at the Litchfield Jazz Camp as a teaching artist since 2009.

Having worked with a veritable Who’s Who of Jazz and Soul artists, Doug has garnered high praise from both his fellow artists and the press. Dr. Lonnie Smith said of him, “Doug Munro…well he can flat out play!”