Lovestruck will be available via CDBaby.com and its distribution partners digitally for $2.99. Boniello initially released the title track video, “Lovestruck,” at the top of the year, followed by the single on Valentine’s Day. She also filmed a live performance, Lovestruck Valentine’s Day Special, on Valentine’s Day online via sites like Cool Grrrls, PopYouLarity and Bella Online. The special featured three songs from her EP, taped with a live audience at Montana Studios in New York. She recorded her EP in the fall of 2011.

Boniello collaborated with GRAMMY Award-winning songwriter/producer Barry Eastmond (Whitney Houston, Britney Spears, Anita Baker) on co-writing all four songs, “Lovestruck,” a retro-soul/pop ditty, “(When Will) Love Feel Real,” a love saga, the whimsical ballad, “Why,” and the pulsating and edgy “That Kind of Girl,” co-written and co-produced by Wendell Hanes, (Mya, Cheri Dennis) and Dan Kramer. Eastmond also produced all the tracks except for “That Kind of Girl,” which he co-produced with Hanes and Kramer.

“I’m just discovering who I am as an artist,” admitted Boniello, “but I’m hoping that once people hear these songs, they’ll feel the joy I felt in writing and recording them.”

Boniello is a native New Yorker, who earned a BA degree in Classical Voice from Hunter College (May 2011). She’s been playing the piano since age 5, and over the past several years started cutting her teeth as live performer at open mic nights around the city, such as the Waltz Astoria in Queens, the Sidewalk Café, Desmond’s Tavern, and 169 Bar in Manhattan.

Her debut performance at Drom will feature Boniello fronting a four-piece band. To purchase tickets online or reserve tables, go to www.dromnyc.com.

For more information about Boniello, go to www.alisaboniello.com.

Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection is a 150-page large-format book containing three CDs with 57 tracks, including Woody’s most important recordings such as the complete version of “This Land Is Your Land,” “Pretty Boy Floyd,” “Pastures of Plenty,” “Hard Travelin’,” “Jesus Christ,” “I Ain’t Got No Home in This World Anymore,” and “Riding in My Car.” The set also contains 21 previously unreleased performances and six never-before-heard original songs, including Woody’s first known — and recently discovered — recordings from 1939.

The Smithsonian Folkways archives hold the largest collection of Woody Guthrie’s recordings. He recorded hundreds of songs for Folkways Records founder Moses Asch.

Richly illustrated with photos, artifacts and Woody’s visual art and lyrics – plus extensive essays on Guthrie and his songs – Woody at 100 commemorates and displays the genius of one of the greatest songwriters, musicians and visual artists of the 20th century.

The book features essays by co-producers Robert Santelli, executive director of the Grammy Museum and author of This Land Is Your Land: Woody Guthrie and the Journey of an American Folk Song, and Jeff Place, GRAMMY-winning archivist for the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and producer of several Woody Guthrie collections and exhibitions.

Four of the unreleased performances, including original songs “Skid Row Serenade” and “Them Big City Ways,” are Guthrie’s earliest known recordings, made in 1939 while he was working for KFVD radio station in Los Angeles. The set also includes a medley performed in 1940 on Leadbelly’s WNYC radio show. The book offers an extensive biography of the artist and background information on each track.

Visit Smithsonian Folkways to:
** Listen to the unreleased original song “Them Big City Ways”
** Purchase pre-order* packages of Woody at 100, including a limited-edition poster, t-shirt, and instant album download

Pre-order packages will ship about July 2-9. Woody at 100 will also be available for digital download and streaming from all major music retailers July 10.

Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie (1912–1967), who would have turned 100 on July 14, 2012, wrote songs that became the soundtrack of an era and permanent fixtures of American identity. His early Dust Bowl ballads, along with more than 3,000 work songs, union and labor songs, political and philosophical songs, anti-war songs, anti-Nazi songs, love songs and children’s songs, marked the pulse of hard-hit people in times of economic depression and war. Many have embraced “This Land Is Your Land” as America’s second national anthem.

Guthrie was ordinary, yet extraordinary — a traveler, itinerant worker, radio performer, military enlistee, thinking man, gifted visual artist, a husband and father, and prolific writer who left his mark on music, culture and politics. He struggled with family tragedies, poverty and personal demons.

Link here for more information on the year-long Woody Guthrie Centennial celebration.

The GRAMMY Museum is partnering with the Guthrie Family and Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc., and the Woody Guthrie Archives to create the Centennial celebrations. The year-long celebration will include a host of concerts, programs and events taking place throughout the country and across the pond.

These live sessions were fully orchestrated, and played by celebrated musicians, artists, and producers, who performed on the album, such as Alisan Porter (The Canyons, Adam Lambert), Davy Nathan (Jason Derulo, Christina Aguilera, Toni Braxton), Ely Rise (Macy Grey, Esthero), Xander Smith (Run Run Run), Greg Malone (Robin Thicke, V. V. Brown), Adrienne Woods (American Idol).

First to premiere was “Fierce Mama,” an empowering anthem for Mamas everywhere! The second video to premiere was “Sleep Until You Dream,” a sweeping lyrical power ballad, featuring Alisan Porter on vocals who also co-wrote and produced the track. The next releases will be “It’s Only Change,” the popular lullaby “Angel,” and the introspective “Inside.”

These videos are available for free on Scarlett’s YouTube Channel,  www.youtube.com/scarlettcherry1 and will be announced via her Twitter, @scarlettcherry, and Facebook fan page, www.Facebook.com/scarlettcherrymusic.

Labor of Love was written and recorded during the 2nd and 3rd trimesters of Scarlett’s pregnancy, celebrating and capturing the joy and beauty of first time motherhood. It is available on iTunes and on Laborofloveproject.com.

1 SIEMBRA (JOAQUIN “JOE” CLAUSSELL REMIX) – RUBEN BLADES 10:13
2 MI GENTE (LOUIE VEGA EOL REMIX) – HECTOR LAVOE 11:36
3 FUNK DOWN (JOAQUIN “JOE” CLAUSSELL) – MONGO SANTAMARIA 8:37
4 TAKE FIVE (NICOLA CONTE REMIX) – ROBERTO ROENA 5:22
5 ALEJATE (JOAQUIN “JOE” CLAUSSELL SACRED RHYTHM REMIX) – HECTOR LAVOE 10:39
6 MORRIS PARK (BONDE DE ROLE REMIX) – LENNI SESAR 2:58
7 O ELEFANTE (SHH REMIX) – RAY BARRETTO 8:41
8 I LIKE IT LIKE THAT (AARON JEROME REMIX) – PETE RODRIGUEZ 6:30
9 SAONA (GILLES PETERSON AND SIMBAD REMIX) – NORO MORALES 7:15
10 ME VOY AHORA (SACRED RHYTHM DANCE VERSION) – ISMAEL MIRANDA 7:04

Preview tracks and download the album at iTunes now:

http://bit.ly/JZu7O4

Trumpet and flugelhorn player Jimmy Owens’ prime challenge in presenting The Monk Project is to bring some of his own originality and surprises to these classic tunes. “Blue Monk” and “Epistrophy” are standards today, but these and some others were covered and recorded as early as 1942 by the Cootie Williams Band. “Well You Needn’t” is classic too. From Monk’s catalog of about 70 compositions, Owens also offers some tunes that are less frequently covered, most notably his seven-minute arrangement of “Stuffy Turkey” and a nine-minute rendition of “Let’s Cool One” translated here in 3/4 time. I also particularly enjoyed hearing “Bright Mississippi” to open the set, and an eleven-minute “Epistrophy” closes the show with plenty of surprises.

Monk himself recorded with groups of various sizes, but one of his arguably best albums (Monk’s Music) was recorded in 1957 with a septet. For The Monk Project, Owens also has a septet with Wycliffe Gordon (trombone), Marcus Strickland (tenor saxophone), Howard Johnson (tuba, baritone saxophone), Kenny Barron (piano), Kenny Davis (bass), and Winard Harper (drums). These master raconteurs provide just the right amount of instrumental narration to the songs to brand them with their own bluesy and affable personalities. They also serve up the tasteful set in a way that’s welcoming, pleasant and quite charismatic. For example, one doesn’t often hear tuba used in Monk’s music or in Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got that Swing),” but it provides a low end that’s really quite full of gumption and steam.

Liner notes are written by USC Professor Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. Overall, the playing on Owens’ album is first-rate, the interpretations are enjoyable, and the arrangements are warm and engaging. (Joe Ross, CD Insight)

With lush intertwining harmonies, the duo underscores the folk-pop album’s “life is short” message with accompaniment from piano, guitar, ukulele and minimal drums. The title track of the album is available as a single exclusively on iTunes with an accompanying video.

Throughout their career the duo have toured tirelessly, building their following the old-fashioned way, turning first time listeners into instant, die-hard fans, winning five Canadian Folk Music Awards and a Juno nomination.

Dala has played all over North America and for the highest profile music festivals, among them New Orleans Jazz Fest, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Denver’s Swallow Hill, the Lowell Summer Concert Series, Strawberry Music Fest, Sisters Folk Festival the and 50th Anniversary of the Newport Folk Festival in 2009 – where Dala were the only Canadian act invited to play. Last summer Dala hosted a PBS special primetime concert entitled “Girls From The North Country” which aired all over North America with multiple plays in Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston Portland, Austin, Cleveland, Charlotte and more.

Dala are grateful, but they tend to measure the success of their records according to more personal benchmarks, such as how well a given record reflects their friendship and how it might enable them connect more effectively with their diverse audience of both the young and young at heart. Best Day is no exception. “We really feel this album represents all of the aspects of our personalities, individually and together,” Carabine says. Dala underline their message beautifully by bracketing Best Day with ‘Life on Earth’ and ‘Still Life’; two songs that encourage listeners to view their lives as masterpieces in the making, regardless of the materials they’re given to work with.

Lyrically, many of the songs on Best Day tread a fine line between uncertainty and hope, often finding Carabine and Walther asking questions both believe can never be answered completely. “They’re the things we’re always grappling with, regardless of life’s highs and lows,” Carabine says, “but that’s the thread that ties all our music together.”

Nowhere is that more evident than on Walther’s, ‘Father’ and Carabine’s, ‘Good as Gold’, both of which deal with the most complex, yet assuredly impermanent relationship – the relationship between parents and their children. But even playful tracks, like ‘First Love’ and ‘Lennon McCartney’, carry the kind of emotional weight that whether a listener is passing from the wooly comforts of childhood into adulthood or recalling memories long since buried, the songs will stop them in their tracks.

What drew Dala together initially was their shared love of the absurd – a quirky, irreverent and occasionally self-critical brand of humor that comes out as clearly in their music as it does their onstage banter. “We go to some emotional places in our music,” Walther says, “Humor serves as a relief from that, and a way to give the audience permission to laugh.” The more spontaneous the dialogue between songs, Carabine adds: “The better the performance and the more memorable the evening.”

That’s exactly the quality Dala hope to capture with every song they write and record – a high standard, perhaps, but one they credit producer, Mike Roth, for holding them to in the studio. Roth shares many of their most treasured influences, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan among them. Additionally, having produced all of their records to date, he’s uniquely suited to help the duo capture their evolving vision as more recent influences, American folk singer, Eliza Gilkyson, Radiohead and Fleet Foxes, for example, come to bear on their music.

Check out Dala’s Tour Dates here.

Since breathing is the first step of life, and slow breathing the beginning of most meditation, an important musical recording has been created to promote slow and conscious breathing as the foundation of the path toward inner peace. The musical duo Tim White and Joe Paulino crafted the world-fusion instrumental music on their album, Inhale Slowly, not only as entertainment, but also specifically to facilitate relaxation, meditation and healing.

“The title is simply a gentle, worthwhile suggestion,” says Paulino, “because the starting point for virtually every form of meditation is slowly inhaling a deep breath. The moment you do that you have already begun to relax. Our music can serve as either a secondary point of concentration that allows you to do other things while listening, or as warm foreground sounds with interesting textures, tones and instrumentation. Either way, its purpose is to help you do whatever you attempt in a deeper, more fulfilling way.”

The recording is available at inhaleslowly.com, whitegatesmusic.com and various online stores.

The mostly-acoustic, cross-cultural music features Tim White on wood-flute, guitar and two traditional instruments from India — sitar and esraj (a bowed string-instrument), as well as Joe Paulino on piano, synthesizer, Balinese gong and, on one tune, Native-American frame-drum. The project’s musical roots are influenced by the classical ragas of Northern India, music that White has studied and taught for the past three-and-a-half decades. The background raga-esque drone, on this project, was created mostly by retro-classic analog synthesizers (“for their calming resonance,” says Paulino). While these original compositions do not follow exact structures of traditional ragas, some of the improvisational elements within a framework are similar. The result is music that is restful and ambient while still full of melodic beauty.

The music’s therapeutic benefits derive from its beginnings as accompaniment created to assist spoken-word guided-meditations led by distinguished meditation teachers Patricia Ellsberg, Dr. Khaleghl Quinn and Heidi Hans Scott, all of whom stress breathing techniques and the sacred importance of breath. From that beginning, the music was more fully developed, with added instrumentation, melodies, and new arrangements, to create a new work that truly stands on its own. The recording is ideal for meditation, massage, yoga, therapy sessions and what White and Paulino refer to as “Road-Rage Neutralization.”

The music moves along at the relaxed speed of a slow breathing cycle,” explains White. “We consciously went about creating musical phrases that went with inhale and exhale rhythms. One of the reasons the flute is the main voice on the recording is because it is so closely related to breathing. The idea of meditational breathing inspired us to pursue the goal of producing music that will help people slow down, relax their breathing process and escape for a time from our hectic world.”

There are five long tunes on the recording ranging from the gentle breath-oriented title track, “Inhale Slowly,” to “Island Pulse,” which is set to a heartbeat rhythm from the large frame-drum. “Dr. Quinn called her various meditations ‘islands’ and we liked that imagery,” explains White. “Morning Chai” is a beginning meditation and refers to a popular boiled drink of black tea, milk, sugar or honey, and various spices. “With ‘In-Joy’ we tried to create a path to a state of joy,” Paulino says. “This music came from our work with Patricia Ellsberg, who focuses on taking time to be joyful, to be into joy, to enjoy the moment.” “Hidden Oasis,” which is dedicated to the Two Bunch Palms desert health spa retreat in Southern California, is meant to capture that sort of restful, restoring experience (“a sonic immersion equivalent to soaking in warm natural mineral waters,” states Paulino).

Tim White and Joe Paulino, who are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, bring their own unique talents to this project. They went to high school together, and re-connected in recent years. During their school days, Tim played guitar in a jazz-rock-fusion band and Joe served as the recording engineer preserving the group’s live shows. “I still have those tapes. Their music inspired me to also pursue music,” says Paulino, who has his own studio where Inhale Slowly was recorded. White also has served as an engineer on many musical projects. In addition, both have individually done extensive commercial work – Paulino as a voice actor, announcer and narrator, and White as an instrumentalist.

White began on guitar in his young teens, played in blues, rock and jazz bands, spent a year performing in Italy after high school, and worked for concert promoter Bill Graham for ten years. White spent 25 years studying sitar with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, one of the acknowledged masters of North India’s classical music. At the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California, Ali Akbar awarded White with a prestigious Vadya Alankar Certificate. In addition to Ali Akbar, some of White’s other teachers there included Pandit Jasraj, Krishna Bhatt, Vilayat Khan, Zakir Hussain and Gnan Prakash Ghosh. White also earned his Bachelors degree at the University of California at Berkeley, and went on to get his Masters degree in electronic music and recording media at Mills College in Oakland. White has taught at the Ali Akbar College, University of the Pacific, San Francisco City College and Diablo Valley College. White has a previous duo album with guitarist Jack Gates, Morning Song Evening Song. White has performed with many musicians from India (including Ali Akbar Khan) as well as a variety of artists in the genres of rock, jazz and avant garde including Terry Riley, Fred Frith, Anthony Braxton, Daniel Kobialka, the Good Sound Band (with Loren Rush and Janis Mattox), and Music as a Second Language with Sylvia Nakkach. White also has performed musical accompaniment for many major classical dancers from India, hosted a radio show featuring the music of India, and wrote and recorded music for the animated film feature, The Golden Antelope. White has broad influences that include Ali Akbar Kahn, sitarist Nikhil Banerjee, B. B. King, Julian Bream, Miles Davis, Debussy, Stockhausen, Bartok, Fluxus, Lamont Young and many others.

Paulino’s career as a performer began with a television appearance on The Red Skelton Show. Developing at a young age as an actor, singer and tap-dancer, he also studied at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. Paulino is a past president of the San Francisco Branch of the Screen Actors Guild, and has been seen or heard in movies that include Super-8, Minority Report, Fearless and Howard the Duck. Paulino was the first announcer when the University of San Francisco’s KUSF signed on the air. Since then, he has enjoyed considerable success for 30 years as a voice talent. He’s been on spots and in sessions with Dana Carvey, Peter Coyote, Bob Elliott (of the comedy team Bob and Ray), Native American comic Charlie Hill, and sporting greats Arnold Palmer, Chipper Jones and Peyton Manning; and was in the cast that re-created the famous “War of the Worlds” broadcast for its 50th anniversary (appearing with Jason Robards, Jr., Steve Allen, Hector Elizondo, and members of The Firesign Theatre) among others. He is a staff announcer at KGO-TV – the ABC affiliate in San Francisco, and has voiced an extensive list of ad campaigns and video games. In the world of music, Paulino has been the pianist for the theatrical improv group Flash Family, produced his own satiric one-man show, “The Only Thing You Can Change is Your Mind,” and has performed spontaneous composition for many years with These Are Not My Hands. In addition to his work on piano and keyboards, Paulino sings in the ‘60s flashback rock band The Vanilla Extract, and plays drums with local jazz groups. His widely varied influences range from Miles Davis, Joe Zawinul and John McLaughlin to Steven Halpern, Paul Horn, Oregon, Brian Eno, Steve Roach, Richard Burmer, Frank Zappa and more.

“It has been said that our brain is often air-deprived,” Paulino says. “This must have some effect on our decision-making process. Slow, deep-breathing is an elegantly simple way for anyone to improve their life. Inhale Slowly was designed especially to help the listener slow down, set their stress aside and connect with a sense of inner peace.”

The Future Is Black™ on November 13, 2012

Santa Monica, Calif. – Call of Duty®: Black Ops II delivers the most groundbreaking and visceral Call of Duty® experience ever. Set in the year 2025, Call of Duty: Black Ops II propels players into global conflict featuring advanced weaponry, robotics, and drone warfare in a new Cold War scenario whose seeds are being sown in today’s headlines. New graphics technology drives the stunning cinematic action of the single-player campaign’s branching story lines and non-linear missions.

“Hands down, this is the most ambitious Call of Duty ever,” said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing. “We are bringing disruptive innovation to the franchise and we are doing it on several fronts. We’re pushing the boundaries technologically, graphically, and from a narrative and gameplay perspective. At the same time, we need to stay true to the epic realism, authenticity, heart pumping adrenaline, and cinematic action that so many people love and expect from a Call of Duty game. Treyarch’s vision for Call of Duty: Black Ops II will redefine the Call of Duty franchise for the future–both literally and figuratively.”

“With Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the team is crafting an experience that Call of Duty fans have never seen before,” said Mark Lamia, Studio Head for Treyarch. “We are challenging assumptions on every front, with the single player campaign, Zombies and multiplayer. In the campaign, we are creating a thought-provoking story that introduces branching storylines and meaningful choices that impact the narrative. Running in the multiplayer engine for the first time, Zombies gives players a bigger and more diverse set of gameplay experiences, as well as entirely new ways to wage war with the undead. And in multiplayer, we’re embracing all skill levels and play styles to give players more ways to engage. With Call of Duty: Black Ops II, we’re all in and we won’t rest until we’ve launched nothing less than the best Call of Duty we’ve ever made.”

On November 13, award-winning developer Treyarch and Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), will deploy the sequel to the universally acclaimed Call of Duty®: Black Ops, which, following its launch in 2010, set the record for the biggest entertainment launch in history. Call of Duty: Black Ops II has not yet been rated. For more information, visit www.callofduty.com/blackops or follow Call of Duty: Black Ops II on www.facebook.com/codblackops and on Twitter at #BlackOps2.

Watch the trailer now:

The only other cover on the album is sax player Joe Henderson’s “Serenity,” and that piece drives home the melodic and improvisational cohesion of the unit. Just like Cray, young Preminger is a force to be reckoned with. His distinctive style and sound fit very nicely with Cray’s, and I hear plenty of range being used on his sax, along with sweet dynamics, new phrases and creative ideas. Along with some influence by the likes of John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Sonny Rollins, Noah shows his potential as a great tenorman.

Another of Cray’s strengths is his skill at composition. His six originals (“Worst Enemy,” “Amor Fati,” “East 69,” “Winter Rose (1728),” “At Least,” “March of the Archetypes”) are sturdy offerings that provide diverse moods and refreshing perspectives. The pianist relocated from Chicago to New York a couple years ago, and he admits (in his liner notes) that the move involved “moments of exhilaration and crushing self-doubt.” However, we’re also pleased to hear that Dan Cray’s new environment has also brought him “fresh artistic inspiration and musical relationships.”

Cray’s bio indicates that he graduated with bachelor degrees in Jazz Studies and European History from Northwestern University. His Chicago-based trio (with bassist Clark Sommers and drummer Greg Wyser-Pratte) released four albums during the period from 2001-2008. Now, Cray’s debut on Origin Records definitely has me wanting to hear more from this skillful player with an evocative, affable style. (Joe Ross, CD Insight)

Check out some of their music at Soundcloud.

Jeremy Long regularly performs with leading artists and orchestras in classical, jazz and popular music. As Assistant Professor of Saxophone at Miami University (Ohio), he’s also an educator.

As a classical saxophonist, Long has performed with the Cincinnati Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, Richmond (Ind.) Symphony, Kentucky Symphony, Lexington Philharmonic and Cincinnati Chamber Orchestras, as well as the Cincinnati Opera and John Adams. He toured Japan with the CSO in 2009 and was a featured soloist at the 14th International Conference of the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles. He has performed in the Linton Chamber Music Series with members of the CSO, and has premiered new works at the 2000 World Saxophone Congress and numerous North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial conferences. In 2008, Long recorded Sketches for Alto Saxophone and Percussion Ensemble by Philip Parker with the Miami University Percussion Ensemble.

As a jazz saxophonist, Jeremy Long has performed with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Michael Feinstein, New York Voices, Blue Wisp Big Band, Pittsburgh Pops Orchestra, Manhattan Transfer, Louis Bellson, PsychoAcoustic Jazz Orchestra, Blue Wisp Big Band, and the Vince DiMartino Jazz Orchestra. As a soloist, Long was featured at the 2008 North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conference, and has performed in various U.S. jazz clubs, including the Blue Wisp (Cincinnati), CAV (Providence, R.I.) and Churchill Grounds (Atlanta). He has also played with pop artists Ray Charles, A. R. Rahman, Chaka Khan, The Temptations, Wayne Brady, and Glee star, Idina Menzel. With the jazz-influenced saxophone quartet Mega-Sax, he was on the cover of the Saxophone Journal and recorded three CDs for Sea Breeze.

As an educator, Dr. Long is currently Assistant Professor of Saxophone at Miami University (Ohio) where he teaches applied saxophone, directs the Jazz Ensemble and coaches saxophone quartets. He has also held positions in saxophone and jazz studies at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, the University of Louisville, Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, and Northern Kentucky University. He was an artist/scholar in residence at Clermont College to coordinate a seven-week series in conjunction with Jazz at Lincoln Center, entitled “Looking At: Jazz, America’s Art Form.” He has been a guest artist and/or clinician at the Wright State University Saxophone Festival, the Victoria (Tex.), Dayton (Ohio) and SRU Jazz Festivals, and guest director of District Jazz Festivals in Ohio and Pennsylvania. He is also a published composer with Walrus Music Publishing and has written compositions and arrangements for big band, jazz sextet, jazz quartet, and five saxophones plus rhythm.