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Jazz By The Bay

Here’s what’s in store for visitors to the 2007 Jazz-By-the Bay Festival in Panama City on Oct. 19 and 20th.: a bop piano stylist, a charming singer and a respected composer whose career spans a half century; a gifted son of a jazz legend who many say eclipses his father; a trumpet virtuoso who sings like Chet Baker; and a local piano and vocal duo singing and playing music of the great American songbook.

Heading the two-day program which begins on Friday night will be New York singer, composer and pianist Bob Dorough; Tampa pianist Kenny Drew Jr.; Atlanta trumpeter and vocalist Joe Gransden; bassist Steve Gilmore and local and regional favorites including saxophonist Joe Occhipinti, pianist Amanda Matthews, and vocalist Sharon Carroll.

Music will begin on Friday at 6:30 p.m. from the pavilion in Oaks-By-the-Bay Park in the St. Andrews section of Panama City. The Park is located at the foot of Beck Ave. next to the St. Andrews Marina.Food, beverage and f estival concessions will be located on site.

Dr. Muffelata and his Basin Street Stompers will entertain on the festival grounds between sets, Bob Dorough is a jazz icon, admired internationally for his bebop jazz piano, musical composition and vocalese singing. Dorough has worked with Miles Davis and Allen Ginsberg, and his adventurous style was an influence on Mose Allison, among other singers. He is perhaps best known as the primary composer of many of the songs used in Schoolhouse Rock!, a series of educational animated shorts appearing on Saturday morning television in the 1970’s and 1980’s on ABC affiliates in the USA.

Kenny Drew Jr., a New York native, now living in Tampa, has performed worldwide with a comprehensive variety of musicians, including Stanley Turrentine, Slide Hampton and the Jazz Masters, and the Mingus Big Band. He is the gifted son of jazz legend Kenny Drew Sr. He was the winner of the 1990 Great American jazz Piano Competition in Jacksonville FL. He has appeared as a leader at many major festivals, including the Jacksonville Jazz Festival, Kyoto Jazz Festival, Savannah on Stage Festival, Clearwater Jazz Festival and the Newark Jazz Festival. Kenny also played a solo piano tribute to Duke Ellington on Ellington’s 100th birthday at the Tonhalle in Zurich. He has recently appeared with his own trio at the Village Vanguard in New York, the Jazz Showcase in Chicago and on the Queen Elizabeth 2 Jazz Cruise. In his mid thirties, Atlanta trumpeter Joe Gransden has already performed worldwide and released four CD’s under his own name. Renowned first for the hard bop approach of his trumpet, Gransden’s singing voice has been compared to Chet Baker and Frank Sinatra. “Joe Gransden is following in the line of great classic singers,” said actor/director and jazz buff Clint Eastwood. “He sings jazz, pop, and beyond and does it with a flair and a talent beyond his years...he is sure to be a hit with young and old alike.”

After hearing Gransden’s latest CD , Eastwood invited Gransden and his quartet to play at his exclusive Tehama Golf Club in Carmel, CA. last April.

In the early ‘90’s, just out of high school, Gransden toured the world with the Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller bands. He eventually moved to New York where he performed with numerous groups including Toshiko Akiyoshi and Chico O’ Farrill. Meanwhile Joe formed his own group which performed in Brooklyn each week and included noted guitarist Joe Cohn.

The festival will wrap up on Saturday night with a jam session featuring festival artists at the Granite Cafe on Beck Street adjacent to Oaks-By-the-Bay Park.

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