Music Series

Guitars & Saxes featuring
Peter White, Gerald Albright, Jeff Golub & Jeff Lorber

Friday, April 18th 2008 at 8:00 PM

Peter White - Smooth jazz guitarist Peter White's lyrical lines and musical inventiveness are a joy to listen to. The affable Englishman's charm and playfulness comes through in his music, giving his style of smooth jazz a liveliness that others in the genre lack. Over the years, Peter had become more comfortable as a performer. “I feel a tremendous joy when I’m able to connect with my audience. The purpose of being up there is not to show how clever I can be, but to simply invite everyone to have a good time. Meeting people after shows to sign CDs and chat is also something which I like to do, whenever possible. It’s quite different from the days when I was just in the background getting little recognition!”

Gerald Albright - He first made a name for himself within the music industry during the 1980s, when he became a highly requested session musician. Whether he is playing contemporary or straight-ahead jazz, Albright stands in a class all by himself. He is known for his swiftness on stage, his unique round sound which is percussive yet soulful. He has the ability to surprise the audience with something out of the ordinary. Albright gives his audience what they come for - a great show!

Jeff Golub - In the '90s, guitarist Jeff Golub's blend of jazz, R&B, and pop earned him a reputation for being one of the edgier, more tasteful players in the crossover jazz/NAC/smooth jazz field. Although some of Golub's recordings were played on smooth jazz stations extensively, he was quoted as saying that he refuses to play outright elevator music, and to be sure, Golub's solos give the impression that he is essentially a soul-jazz improviser at heart. The Ohio native (whose influences have included Montgomery, Benson, Ritenour, and Carlton, & others) is quite capable of playing straight-ahead bop; he certainly has the chops for it.

Jeff Lorber - Some three decades after breaking funky R&B-jazz ground as leader of the pioneering Jeff Lorber Fusion, the Philly-born and bred composer, producer and keyboard legend still believes in the element of surprise. Riffing quite literally on the title of his 2005 Grammy-nominated recording Flipside, Lorber stretches beyond his comfort zone on He Had a Hat, a distinctively eclectic “player’s session” with a batch of contemporary jazz’s most exciting artists.

Dominic Amato - Dominic was born into a family of musicians. His father is a saxaphonist, his mother a multi instrumentalist, and his brother a vocal artist. Given his musical upbringing, it may come as little surprise that Dominic began experimenting with musical instruments from a very young age. In fact, no sooner had he celebrated his second birthday did he began dabbling with the drums. But drawn to the wonderful sound of his father's saxophone, it would not be long before Dominic would trade in his drumset for a sax of his own.