ABOUT PUMPKIN JAZZ 2023

Genre: Jazz

Pumpkin Jazz is back.

With multiple performance locations in Willits, our annual fall presentation of Pumpkin Jazz offers the community a free chance to celebrate this amazing genre of music. This heavily local gathering of Jazz cats is not to be missed.

5:00 – 7:00 Triangle Park – Good Trouble

5:00 – 7:00 Keating Gallery – Josefina Mendez Trio

5:30 – 7:30 TACAW Terrace – Frank Todaro Jazz Trio

7:30 – 9:00 TACAW Theater – Mark Johnson Organ Trio

9:15 – 11:30 TACAW Theater – Pumpkin Jam

Presented in Partnership with Basalt Public Arts Commission

ABOUT The Mark Johnson Organ Trio

The Mark Johnson Organ Trio brings together 3 friends of over 30 years to pay homage to the classic Blue Note recordings of Stanley Turrentine and Shirley Scott. Soulful and swinging grooves, with a sophisticated, toe-tapping twist is sure to have you engaged with both body and mind!

Special guests Chris Bank and Josefina Mendez will be on hand to add their wonderful vocals, truly making it a special evening not to be missed!!

Mark Johnson – Saxophone

A multi-instrumentalist, recording artist with JVC records, producer and arranger for noted contemporary jazz performers Special EFX, Larry Coryell, Nelson Rangell, The Fantasy Band, Walter Beasley, Mark Whitfield, Alex Bugnon, Gerald Veasley, Bryan Savage, Roseanna Vitro, George Jinda’s World News, Dave Valentine, Hiram Bullock, Chuck Loeb, NYC Percussionwerks, Cheili Minnuci, and the Smooth Players.

George Laks – Organ

George Laks is a Los Angeles based pianist/organist. After studying classical piano for 13 years and studying Jazz piano at Berklee College of Music, George joined multiple Grammy Artist Lenny Kravitz in 1993 for his “Are you Gonna Go My Way” tour. George has 30 years of concert touring experience, network television appearances with Lenny Kravitz, Natalie Merchant, Chris Robinson, and Amanda Shires, and recording studio experience and contributions to multiple top ten studio albums as well as contributions to documentary film soundtracks and Hollywood movie soundtracks.

Dave Johnson – Drums

Dave started playing drums at age eight in drum corps, following in the footsteps of his father, a snare drummer for Scottish bagpipe bands. Dave’s early music career on drum set included jazz gigs with pianist Dave Hazeltine, bassist Gerald Cannon and organist Melvin Rhyne. Dave moved to New York in 1989, and spent more than a decade as a touring and session musician, on drums, keyboards, composing and arranging. He played several years as a member of Bo Diddley’s touring band, as well as gigs and recording with Gloria Gaynor, pianist Johnnie Johnson, and jazz fusion group Special EFX. A severe arm injury halted Dave’s music career, during which time he developed an interest in science and entered academia, ultimately earning a PhD in neuroscience from Weill Cornell Medical College. Dave has resumed his music career, and teaches and conducts neuroscience research as a faculty member in the City University of New York.

ABOUT Good Trouble @ Triangle Park Park

Patrick Amdahl (guitar) – Like a moth to a flame, Patrick has had an unrelenting draw to guitar his entire life. Through his love of funk and jazz, he hopes that you will share in the groove.

Paul Valentine (drums) – Recruited by THE ARTIST @ five years old to the musical life, and have been on the quest for the melody that will soothe the soul and still the savage beast ever since. Music can help heal the fractured heart of humanity.

Mike Facey (bass) – Mike has been playing bass and guitar for almost thirty years, and has been an active teacher for the last fifteen. As an educator, Mike currently maintains his own private studio in addition to working with Jazz Aspen Snowmass. As a performer, he remains an in demand freelance musician throughout Colorado, having shared the stage with NEA Jazz Master Paquito D’Rivera and Grammy winner John McEuen to name a few. Mike has appeared on hundreds of recordings as a session bassist and guitarist.

John Riger (keys) – John has been playing piano his entire life. He’s currently an on line student of gospel piano/organ with Vaughn Brathwaite who teaches the same at Berklee College of Music. Music is the blood of the soul, the essence of some kind of vibration that the group synchs up on to enjoy and share with others. Jazz is a kind of language that everyone has instinctive ability to interpret from birth. To learn how to speak it takes an entire lifetime, at the very least. It’s so powerful. It has purpose. One world all grateful. 

Frank Todaro Jazz Trio @ TACAW Terrace

With six decades of experience performing music in town, Frank Todaro is Aspen’s Godfather of Jazz Piano. His trio includes Dustin Lutomski on trumpet and Ashton Taufer on standup bass. Together they perform a wide range of jazz standards from the 1920s-1960s, from Ragtime to Bebop and everything in between, as well as some original tunes written by Dustin.

Presented By: The Arts Campus At Willits, Town of Basalt and the Basalt Public Arts Commission.