The Roxbury CT Jazz Festival would like to thank the Roxbury Recreation Commission, TransMedia Creative, LLC, the Roxbury Market as well as the generous sponsors, donors and volunteers who helped create this magical event. We are deeply grateful to the many folks who braved the rain and came out to hear our wonderful local and regional jazz artists.
photos: 2018 Roxbury Jazz Festival
photos courtesy Town of Roxbury, CT
Artists from 2018:
Hot Club of Black Rock
A group paying homage to the great Django Reinhardt, The Hot Club of Black Rock plays hot swing, or jazz manouche, the kind of jazz that was popular in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. Think Romani and Frenchmen, expatriates from all over Europe and America. Think the Moulin Rouge, or a cafe at four in the morning.
Medusa featuring Jocelyn Pleasant and Corey Hutchins
Jazz music and tap dancing share a history that’s easy to overlook. As big-band swing gave way to bebop after WWII, and tap strengthened its ties to certain strains of jazz, it also went off in search of newer, more fertile rhythmic terrain — rock music, funk and hip-hop — to plant its roots. These days, tap dancers and small-band jazz combos rarely occupy the same bandstand.
That’s part of the appeal of Medusa, a Hartford-based jazz group that plays mostly standards that highlight the era of jazz when tap dancers were featured with jazz musicians. Drummer Jocelyn Pleasant co-founded the group with tap dancer Corey Hutchins, whom she met through the Artists Collective in Hartford years ago.
Pleasant, a Middletown resident who teaches music at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, said she and Hutchins wanted to bring something unique to the local jazz scene. “We wanted to do something that’s not in Hartford,” Pleasant said. “Tap dancers are an integral part of the origins of jazz.”
For one thing, there’s the rhythmic complexity, like adding a second drummer; Hutchins and Pleasant can equally chop up the beat while playing around with the groove. “It’s actually great for me,” Pleasant said. “Corey and I have a lot of the same rhythmic sensibilities, and we work really well together.”
Then there’s the obvious visual appeal. To some extent, all good players are fun to watch, and Hutchins can hang to the side, vamping along with Pleasant, while other band members take solos. When it’s his turn, Hutchins, a veteran of the Broadway production of “Riverdance” and the artistic director for CT Tap Productions, is quite amazing.
Kathy Thompson Band
Starting out as an acoustic solo artist back in 1990, there is no way Kathy Thompson could have ever fathomed where her musical journey currently resides. After spending decades honing her skills as both a singer and guitarist, she now fronts the 7-piece colossus that bears her name. Beginning with Kathy’s soulful, bluesy singing style, she has amassed a supporting roster of musicians that have been described by the Hartford Advocate as “impeccable…finely calibrated…and tight.”
Behind Kathy’s powerful voice, she is joined by a three piece horn/background vocal section consisting of Patrick Casey on trumpet and flugelhorn, Keith Lafond on both tenor & alto saxophones and flute, as well as John Smayda on baritone saxophone. Joining Kathy and the horn players is Greg Benn on lead guitar and background vocals, Marco Santana on drums an background vocals, and Paul Lebinski on electric bass and background vocals.
Together, KTB, as they are collectively known, is an unstoppable force in any room, bringing an excitement that gets patrons out of their seats and onto the dance floor. Mixing old school funk, soul, and R’n’B hits along with a complementary sprinkling of selections from contemporary artists, KTB is able to command any audience, young or old, and send their spirits grooving.
Throughout their tenure as a group, Kathy and her band have shared the stage with a myriad of national artists such as Joe Bonamassa, Roomful of Blues, The Machine, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, Shakedown, Johnny Winter and many others. The band has graced the stages of such celebrated venues as The Ridgefield Playhouse, Toad’s Place, The Webster Theater, and the Wolf’s Den at Mohegan Sun Casino to name a few. The current incarnation of KTB has been together for nearly a decade now and is performing at a level that exceeds the average “bar band” one usually finds. KTB is a collective of skilled musicians hell bent on delivering the goods to any audience, leaving them exhausted from dancing and clamoring for more.
Marc Wager and the Roxtones
The Doug White Quintet
The Doug White Quintet is comprised of Doug White, tenor saxophonist and vocalist; pianist, Chris Casey, an instructor at the Hartt School and arranger and conductor of the Jackie McLean Orchestra; trumpeter, Pat Casey; drummer Tido Holtkamp; and bassist Steve “King” Porter, also an instructor at Hartt who is well known for his work with the Winard Harper Quintet.
Doug White has performed with many jazz greats including Joe Puma, Annie Ross, Tommy Flanagan, and Milt Hinton. Mentored early on by Warne Marsh, Sam Coslow and Miles Davis, Doug White has entertained at New York City’s Supper Club, Jubilee, Bubble Lounge, and Rainbow and Stars, London’s Pizza on the Park and Green Room along with private engagements in London, Paris & Provence. He has performed at a number of European festivals as well, including Ireland’s Guinness Jazz Festival, where he was the subject of a two-hour documentary on RTE television, and has been the subject of profiles on the BBC World Service. Featured throughout Europe and the East Coast with legendary singer, Annie Ross, (of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross fame), Doug White has enjoyed international acclaim at the helm of his own groups since the early 1970’s. Doug learned jazz the old fashioned way (no jazz camp, no jazz degree) by listening, living and playing it.
The Doug White Quintet offers a program that ranges from bop to ballads, catchy original material as well as standards, blues & modern-style improvising. Along with Doug’s inimitable sax playing, the group’s instrumentals range from classic jazz to Herb Alpert and Esquivel.
