Guitar master George Benson, a long-time supporter, has described Bollenback’s work as “bona-fide playing, unambiguous, up-front and powerful,” calling him “a versatile dynamo on guitar. His approach to jazz and blues has a uniqueness unto itself”.That comment has special resonance in that Bollenback counts Benson high among his wide range of influences; these also include Carlos Santana, Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, John McLaughlin, Johnny Winter, and Jimi Hendrix (among guitarists), as well as such giants of improvisation and composition as pianists Herbie Hancock and Bill Evans, and saxists Wayne Shorter and John Coltrane.
 
Born just outside Chicago, Illinois in 1959, Paul Bollenback was raised in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, just outside NYC. Bollenback got his earliest musical nudge from his father, a classically trained trumpeter who first provided the 7-year-old son with a nylon-string guitar – and then provided a new world of inspiration. The elder Bollenback, a scientist, relocated the family from New York to New Delhi, India when Paul was 11, and it was there that he cultivated a life-long interest in exotic musical sounds and timbres that remains evident in even his most jazz-based work. When the family returned to New York, Paul’s father bought him an electric guitar and, like just about every other young guitarist in the 60s and 70s, Paul started gigging in local rock-and-roll bands – until he heard Miles Davis for the first time, which refocused his energies into jazz fusion.
 
Relocating again in 1975, from New York to Washington, DC, Bollenback began to study and perform both straight-ahead jazz and fusion. He majored in music at the University of Miami, then studied for eight years with Baltimore-based professor of Theory/Composition Asher Zlotnick. In 1987 he made his recording debut on saxophonist Gary Thomas’s Seventh Quadrant (Enja), and in 1990 established a working relationship with the young organ legend Joey DeFrancesco, an association that lasted to this day, and produced 18 recordings.
 
In 1991 Bollenback’s compositions “Wookies’ Revenge” and “Romancin’ the Moon” (featured on DeFrancesco’s Columbia Records release Reboppin’) were honored by SESAC with that organization’s award for original composition. In 1993, a grant from the Virginia Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts resulted in the composition “New Music for Three Jazz Guitars.” In 1997, Bollenback was named Musician of the Year at the Washington Area Music Awards. That year he returned to New York City, where he now lives.
 
Bollenback debuted as a leader with Original Visions (Challenge), and his sophomore effort, Double Gemini, was named “CD of The Month” by both 20th-Century Guitar Magazine and WBGO Jazz Radio. His 3rd release on Challenge, Soul Grooves, was named “Best Contemporary Jazz Album of 1999” by ‘Ndigo Magazine. He has appeared on the Tonight Show, Good Morning America, the Today Show, and Entertainment Tonight, and has played with an impressive spectrum of musicians, including Joey DeFrancesco, Steve Gadd, Gary Bartz, Paul Bley, Charlie Byrd, Terri-Lyne Carrington, Herb Ellis, Geoffrey Keezer, Mike LeDonne, Joe Locke, Jack McDuff, James Moody, David “Fathead” Newman, Jim Snidero, Carol Sloane, Gary Thomas, Grady Tate, Stanley Turrentine, and Jeff “Tain” Watts, vocalist-composer, Chris McNulty and in the group East Meets Jazz with the renowned tabla virtuoso Sandip Burman, to name a few.
 
Bollenback’s range and impressive discography as both sideman and leader speak for themselves. His last two releases “Brightness of Being” (ED4548) & “Invocation” (ED4550) remained on the USA Jazz Week charts for several months in 2007 and 2008 consecutively. “Invocation” was voted onto Downbeat’s Top 100 releases of 2008 and received wide critical acclaim in the international press garnering 4 and 5 star reviews in Jazz Times Magazine among others.
 
In 2011 Bollenback garnered a Grammy nomination for co-production on Joey DeFrancesco’s Never Can Say Goodbye (Hi Note), and also shares executive and co-producing credits with vocalist-composer Chris McNulty on her albums Dance Delicioso and her Whispers the Heart (Elefant Dreams). His international and national touring schedule currently include appearances with Joey DeFrancesco, Mike LeDonne, Jim Snidero, Gary Smullyan, Buster Williams, Chris McNulty’s Magic Trio, as well as many appearances with his own trio.

Strickland’s desire to preach above and beyond the jazz choir is rooted in his affinity toward a multitude of musical styles. Growing up in a household which encouraged the arts, Strickland’s musical palette had been vast long before his professional endeavors. This broad creative range, along with his emergence as a singular voice on his instrument, helped Strickland land his first recording deal as a leader with the Fresh Sound label, soon after the Miami native graduated from New York’s esteemed New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music; a breeding ground for many who would become today’s most relevant figures in jazz.
 
Strickland has a covetable list of recording and performing credits, having collaborated with Wynton Marsalis, Tom Harrell, and Dave Douglas, but Strickland’s longest and most impressionable working relationships include two of the most influential drummers ever to play the instrument: Roy Haynes and Jeff “Tain” Watts. Strickland was still attending college when jazz master Roy Haynes asked him to join his Fountain of Youth band. Strickland held the tenor spot for five years before joining Watts; a drummer who is without question at least in-part responsible for ushering in this generation of successors.
 
As a bandleader, Strickland unsurprisingly takes cues from yet another drummer. “There’s a quote from Art Blakey that just says, ‘Leave the band alone,’ Strickland emphasizes, through an abundance of hearty laughter. “He’s referring to his leading style. You know, don’t tell them how to play! And it’s very important. I want everybody to feel good. I want the band especially to feel good so the music can feel good, and the audience can feel good. I want there to be room for a party. So I write like that, I lead like that.”
 
Strickland’s critics are listening, too. Over the last five years, Strickland has held some of the most prestigious positions in the realm of jazz journalism: Rising Star on Soprano Saxophone in Downbeat’s 2012 Critic’s Poll Rising Star on Tenor Saxophone in Downbeat’s 2010 Critic’s Poll, Rising Star on Soprano Saxophone in Downbeat’s 2008 Critic’s Poll and Best New Artist in JazzTimes’ 2006 Reader’s Poll. For Strickland, the blueprint for triumph is based on one main principle, “As long as you’re honest, I think nobody can mess with that. I think that’s essential to being an artist… to be yourself. Really expose what’s inside of you, try to put that out there in a very creative and beautiful way that people can enjoy. My whole goal is to make enjoyable music with great depth, and touch as many people as I can with it. That’s all I want to do.”
 
Marcus Strickland official site

Bassist Joseph Lepore was born in New York and raised in Salerno, Italy when his parents moved the family back to their home country. Classically trained Lepore graduated from the Conservatory in Salerno with high honors and not too long after, left his hometown for Rome, where he joined a teaming musical scene and thriving jazz community.
 
Soon he began playing with some of Italy’s more prominent members and visiting US jazz musicians, including Bob Dorough, Antonio Farao’, Roberto Gatto, Joy Garrison, George Garzone, Steve Grossman, Tom Kirkpatrick, David Liebman, Mike Maineri, Bob Mover, Romano Mussolini, Jimmy Owens, Enrico Pieranunzi, Tony Scott, Gary Smulian, Elliot Zigmund, and others.
Among other activities, Lepore worked on Italian television shows and taught jazz bass performance and theory in music schools both in Salerno and Rome, with the same energy and enthusiasm, as when he was performing.
 
From 1997 through 1999 Joseph has played with the quartet of saxophonist Rosario Giuliani. Throughout the latter part of the ‘90s, he played with Giuliani and other significant groups traveling the festival circuits and he performed at some of the better known jazz festivals: Gexto Jazz Festival (Spain), Jazz a Liegi (Belgium), the Umbria Jazz Festival, Jazz & Image, Ancona Jazz, Marajazz, Urbino Jazz, and Teano Jazz, just to name a few.
 
In September 1997, he competed in the Europ Jazz Contest, one of the most important competitions, held annually in Brussels. Out of 60 groups, most of them coming from various parts of the European continent, the quartet he was performing with claimed first prize and were crowned the best musical group that year.
 
Two years later, Joseph returned to New York City and landed a gig playing as a member of Trio 65, the house band at Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room, performing six days a week. New York being a mecca for jazz and jazz musicians, he was able stay employed playing with some of the best jazz artists anywhere: J.D.Allen, Clifford Barbaro, Isaac Ben Ayala, David Berkman, Peter Bernstein, Adam Birnbaum, Otis Brown, Chris Byars, Renato Chicco, Tim Collins, Billy Drummond, Duane Eubanks, Joe Farnswoth, Joel Frahm, Rick Germanson, Dave Gibson, Aaron Goldberg, Ned Goold, Noah Haidu, Tardo Hammer, Rufus Harley, Frank Hewitt, Victor Jones, Michael Kanan, Billie Kay, Ralph La Lama, Brad Leali, Eric Lewis, Jimmy Lovelace, Joe Magnarelli, Pete Malinverni, Ronnie Matthews, Bill McHenry, Eric McPherson, Dado Moroni, John Mosca, Lance Murphy, Cynthia Scott, David Schnitter, James Spaulding, Grant Stewart, Richie Vitale, Nasheet Waits, Ben Waltzer, Harry Withaker, Michael Wilner, Michael Weiss, Lenny White, Jeff Williams, Richard Wyands, Leroy Williams, Sam Yahel.
 
Joseph had an opportunity to work in the film industrty appearing in Anthony Minghella’s film, The Talented Mr. Ripley which starred Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. In 2006 Lepore returned to academe when he was admitted into the jazz program at CCNY, to further hone his virtuosity, while still gigging around the New York City area. Among his tutors was the legendary bassist, John Patitucci.
 
Two years later (2008) he was “hand picked” by renowned saxophonist Greg Osby for his new band of upcoming talents (with which he records the album 9 Levels), which provided him significant exposure, and brought him closer to record his own album.
 
Osby had launched Inner Circle Music, in 2007, providing a fresh crop of gifted jazz artists, with the opportunity to record and distribute their own projects. But before Lepore signed on to record, he accepted a teaching grant that took him to the Ecole Nationale De Musique in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, to teach jazz performance. He had been to Africa in 2004, with singer Cynthia Scott, traveling and performing as part of the American Music Abroad program sponsored by the State Department and the Kennedy Center and in 2007, he had returned with the Charlie Porter Quartet as part of the same Music Abroad program. Upon his return, he resumed where he had left off with Osby.
 
Joseph continues to work with Osby and has had the opportunity to perform also with notable sax players Mark Turner and Joe Lovano. His debut album as a band leader, Journal, has been released in August 2010 for Inner Circle Music.

Brazilian percussionist and educator Rogério Boccato plays in projects led by some of today’s leading jazz players, among them Danilo Perez, John Patitucci, Edward Simon, David Binney, Ben Allison, Paul Bollenback, Jon Gordon, and Mike Holober. He has also collaborated with top-ranking Brazilian artists, such as Toninho Horta, Dori Caymmi, Moacir Santos, and Vinicius Cantuária.
 
He is featured on two Grammy-nominated albums: Kenny Garrett’s “Beyond The Wall” and John Patitucci’s release “Remembrance”, alongside Joe Lovano and Brian Blade.
 
As a longtime member of the “Orquestra Jazz Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo”, Brazilian percussionist Rogério Boccato has played with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Hermeto Pascoal, Milton Nascimento, Egberto Gismonti, João Bosco, Joe Zawinul, among many others.
 
Rogério Boccato has been a faculty member of the Percussion department of The Hartt School (University of Hartford) teaching Brazilian Percussion and Ritmica, and recently joined the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music and Montclair State University.
 
He has been presenting clinics on Brazilian music, focusing on traditional Brazilian rhythms and styles applied to the drum set and to Jazz combo, which have been enthusiastically received at universities around the United States, Mexico and Portugal.

One of the most in demand jazz drummers in the world today, Jeff initially majored in classical percussion at Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University, where he was primarily a timpanist, followed by enrollment at the Berklee School of Music, where he pursued jazz studies alongside such talented players as Branford Marsalis, Kevin Eubanks, Greg Osby, Aimee Mann, Steve Vai and Marvin “Smitty” Smith.
 
Jeff joined the Wynton Marsalis Quartet in 1981 and proceeded to win three Grammy Awards with the ensemble. Watts left Wynton Marsalis in 1988. After working with George Benson, Harry Connick. Jr. and McCoy Tyner, he joined the Branford Marsalis Quartet in 1989.
 
Jeff has worked in the film and television industry as both a musician on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and as an actor, Rhythm Jones in Spike Lee’s “Mo Better Blues”. Jeff joined Kenny Garrett’s band after returning to New York in 1995 after three years in LA on the Tonight Show. Watts also continued to record and tour with Branford Marsalis as well as Danilo Perez, Michael Brecker, Betty Carter, Kenny Kirkland, Courtney Pine, Geri Allen, Alice Coltrane, Greg Osby, Steve Coleman, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and Ravi Coltrane. (read more at Read more at Drummerworld.com