Who is Robert Sanae? Dayton native, Robert Sanae, born Robert Jones, is a product of a rich musical heritage with relatives who were accomplished musicians of groups such as ‘Sun’ and ‘Dayton’, and his father an original member of the acclaimed Ohio Players. Robert is a multi-genre producer, composer, writer as well as a multi-instrumentalist. Robert began his professional career as a member of the R&B Group ‘Zapp’ featuring Roger Troutman, where he was a trumpeter, keyboardist, vocalist where he learned numerous other skills, including audio engineering and editing. With … [Read more...]

Local (Springfield, Ohio) jazz artist, Dean Simms, has created a 90 minute full length musical stage play called that tells the story about the amazing life and career of Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong. This musical tells the story about the amazing life and career of Louis Armstrong in a full 90 minute bigger than life stage production. His script was selected out of 100's by the DC Black Theater Festival to be performed in the nation’s capital on June 21-29 2013. I have always considered Dean an outstanding trumpet player ever since the days when Rosemary and I first caught him … [Read more...]

Because I’ve been to six big band performances in the last couple of weeks, this is a good time to write about the impact of jazz band music past and present day in our area. The overall subject is too large to cover in depth but you can find an interesting read here. A big band is a type of musical ensemble that originated in the United States and is associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately 12 to 25 musicians. Standard 17-piece instrumentation evolved in the big-bands, for which many commercial … [Read more...]

Happy January 16th; Irving Mills was born on this day in 1894, He and his brother Jack built a company that became the largest independent music publisher in the world. Check out Wikipeda for more information. Miscellaneous Jazz Notes: Latest word on the possible closing status of the Blue Wisp in Cincinnati: Click Here More sad news for local jazz - Worthington Inn to Discontinue Regular Jazz Programming: Click Here Here’s a note on the Cincinnati Winter Blues Fest: Click Here Dayton Art Institute's 2013 Vectren Jazz & Beyond The Dayton Art Institute will present their … [Read more...]