Summer Workshops Instructors

Jazz pianist/composer Ray Gallon has performed, recorded and toured the world with many of the leading artists of jazz, including Ron Carter, Lionel Hampton, Art Farmer, T.S. Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Jackson, Sweets Edison Wycliffe Gordon, Les Paul, Benny Golson. Frank Wess, Lew Tabakin, George Adams and the Mingus Big Band.

He has performed at most of the major jazz festivals and venues throughout North and South America, Europe, and Japan and has appeared in gala concerts at the White House and the Kennedy Center.

Ray has also accompanied many vocal greats, including Jon Hendricks, Chaka Khan, Sheila Jordan, Grady Tate, Nnenna Freelon, Gloria Lynne, Dakota Staton, Joe Williams, and Jane Monheit. In addition, he also leads his own trio as well as performs solo concerts. His compositions have been recorded by T.S. Monk, the Harper Brothers, and George Adams. Ray has appeared on numerous recordings, including Lionel Hampton's Grammy-nominated Cookin' In the Kitchen.

His broadcast appearances include NBC's The Tonight Show and Today as well as several nationally broadcast concert performances on BET-TV and NPR. Ray is a full-time jazz faculty member of the City College of NY and an adjunct in the jazz program at The New School. He has led or participated in numerous workshops and master classes throughout North and South America. Ray is the co-leader/pianist/composer of a new series of internationally distributed jazz practice and study aide CDs. He holds both BFA and MA degrees in performance & composition from CCNY.

Harvey Diamond is one of the most accomplished jazz pianists in the Boston area. Over the years he has performed across the U.S. and in Europe. In Boston he has performed at Ryles Jazz Club, the Acton Jazz Café, the Regatta Bar, The Colonial Inn in Concord and many more venues. He has been a guest on WGBH Radio on the Eric Jackson Show "Eric in the Evening".

Harvey has been described as "one of the unsung heroes of the Boston jazz scene since the mid-1960's." He was among Lennie Tristano's (one of the great original improvisers who played with such luminaries as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker in the 1940's) last students in the 1970's, and has done concert appearances accompanying celebrated jazz singer Sheila Jordan and jazz trumpeter Art Farmer (recipient of the 1999 NEA Jazz Master Award).

Harvey regularly performs with the Working Man's Jazz Band and other area musicians, including with his daughter, Hannah Rose Diamond, an accomplished singer.

Recipient of NEA award to study with Charlie PersipTours with Archie Shepp, Melba Liston, Attila Zoller.

Claire is a world-class musician, drummer, and composer who performs world wide. Her innovative musical stylings take her across the globe and back .

She has numerous recordings, her latest album is "When Worlds Touch You".

Arenius is an unconventional composer whose subtlely belies the complexity of her tunes.

Satoshi Takeishi has appeared on over 75 recordings including those by Latin giants Nestor Torres, Ray Barretto, Hector Martignon and Eliane Elias (in the film, "Calle 54").

He has also performed with Laszlo Gardony, Badal Roy, Erik Friedlander, Cantor, Sasha Argov, Colombian saxophonist Antonio Arnedo, Paul Winter, Antony Braxton, Theo Bleckmann/Ben Monder, Joel Harrison and Rob Brown.

But Satoshi's roots are deep and he can also be found working with Marc Johnson, Eddie Gomez, Randy Brecker, Dave Liebman, Mark Murphy, Herbie Mann, and the Toshiko Akiyoshi Big Band. His unique style incorporates percussion and electronics with his traditional drum set.

Composer, leader and sideman, bassist Marcus McLaurine, has become one of the most sought-after artists in jazz, sharing bandstands with Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Burrell, James Moody, Lou Donaldson, Dame Cleo Laine, Joe Williams, Jon Hendricks, Abbey Lincoln, the Count Basie Orchestra under the direction of Thad Jones and Clark Terry, whose band he has been with since 1981.

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, he studied music at the University of Nebraska then moved to Los Angeles. In 1976 Marcus entered the Air Force and later moved to New York City where he has lived ever since. Now, in addition to his work as a leader and first-call sideman, Marcus is focusing on his burgeoning career as a composer, writing both jazz and contemporary pieces.

McLaurine has been an adjunct professor at William Paterson University for the past seven years. There he teaches acoustic and electric bass focusing on a broad repertoire including classic standards, bebop, Latin and more progressive styles to prepare his students to be able to compete on a professional level.

Guitar instructor Helmut Kagerer is one of VJC founder Attila Zoller's foremost students. Helmut is currently living in his native Germany where he is a jazz guitar instructor at the Nuremberg Conservatory and one of the country's leading musicians.

His guitar work has been documented on over 25 recordings and includes performances or recordings with Clark Terry, Sam Rivers, Buddy de Franco, Peter Bernstein, Peter Leitch, Keith Copeland, Dwayne Burno and others. A CD with Attila Zoller was recently released by Enja Records.

Recipient of the honored Bavarian States Prize, Kagerer has studied at the Vermont Jazz Center, the Jazz School in Munich and the Conservatory of Music and Fine Arts in Graz, Austria. Helmut's warmth and down to earth teaching style in combination with his vast teaching credentials will enhance the experience for this year's guitar students as well as the VJC community.

Raised in poverty in Pennsylvania's coal-mining country, Jordan began singing as a child and by the time she was in her early teens was working semi-professionally in Detroit clubs. Her first great influence was Charlie Parker and, indeed, most of her influences have been instrumentalists rather than singers. Working chiefly with black musicians, she met with disapproval from the white community but persisted with her career. She was a member of a vocal trio, Skeeter, Mitch And Jean (she was Jean), who sang versions of Parker's solos in a manner akin to that of the later Lambert, Hendricks And Ross.

After moving to New York in the early 50s, she married Parker's pianist, Duke Jordan, and studied with Lennie Tristano, but it was not until the early 60s that she made her first recordings. One of these was under her own name, the other was "The Outer View" with George Russell, which featured a famous 10-minute version of "You Are My Sunshine".

In the mid-60s her work encompassed jazz liturgies sung in churches and extensive club work, but her appeal was narrow even within the confines of jazz. By the late 70s jazz audiences had begun to understand her uncompromising style a little more and her popularity increased - as did her appearances on record, which included albums with pianist Steve Kuhn, whose quartet she joined, and an album, Home, comprising a selection of Robert Creeley's poems set to music and arranged by Steve Swallow.

A 1983 duo set with bassist Harvie Swartz, "Old Time Feeling", comprises several of the standards Jordan regularly features in her live repertoire, while 1990's "Lost And Found" pays tribute to her bebop roots. Both sets display her unique musical trademarks, such as the frequent and unexpected sweeping changes of pitch, which still tend to confound an uninitiated audience. Her preference to the bass and voice set led to another remarkable collaboration with bassist Cameron Brown, whom she has been performing with all over the world for more than ten years so far and they have released the live albums "I've Grown Accustomed to the Bass" and "Celebration". Entirely non-derivative, Jordan is one of only a tiny handful of jazz singers who fully deserve the appellation and for whom no other term will do.

Copyright 1989-2000 Muze UK Ltd

Jay Clayton is an internationally acclaimed vocalist, composer, and educator, whose work boldly spans the terrain between jazz and new music. In 1963 she began her career performing the standards on the vibrant New York music scene. However, she quickly became a prominent part of the free jazz movement. Her work in these two worlds led to the development of a highly personal, wordless vocabulary later enhanced by her innovative use of electronics. Jay has gained worldwide attention as both performer and teacher. With more than 40 recordings to her credit, Clayton has appeared alongside such formidable artists as Muhal Richard Abrams, Steve Reich, Kirk Nurock, Julian Priester, Jerry Granelli, Jane Ira Bloom, Gary Bartz, Jack Wilkins, George Cables, Fred Hersch, Gary Thomas, tap dancer Brenda Bufalino as well as fellow vocalists Jeanne Lee, Norma Winstone, Urszula Dudziak and Bobby McFerrin.

She has taught extensively throughout the world and continues to do so. She has co-taught with Sheila Jordan at the Vermont Jazz Workshop, Jazz in July in Massachusetts, the Banff Centre in Canada, Summer Jazz Workshop sponsored by Veneto Jazz and the New School in New York in July in Bassano da Grappa, and was on the jazz faculty of Cornish College of the Arts for 20 years. She is currently on the jazz faculty at Peabody Institute in Baltimore, and the New School in New York. Her book, Sing Your Story: A Practical Guide for Learning and Teaching the Art of Jazz Singing, was published by Advance Music in 2001. Her many accomplishments include grants from the National Endowment for the arts, Meet the Composer, CAPS, and in 2004 received the New Works: Creation and Performance grant from Chamber Music America.

Dr. Brofsky has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in Jazz Education as well as in 18th-century Italian music. His numerous accomplishments include Fulbright grants to study and teach in France (where he made his first jazz recording) and Italy.

He spent the fall of 1993 teaching jazz history to university students in Oslo, Norway and is the author of the definitive music appreciation text, "The Art of Listening."

A regular with Larry Rivers and the Climax Band in New York, he has played with Jimmy Heath, Donald Byrd, Dexter Gordon, and other Jazz Greats. He has a recent CD entitled "73 down: drbebop," with among others, Attila Zoller, Jimmy Heath, and Larry Willis.

Brofsky is also Professor Emeritus of Music at Queens College, NY.

Eugene Uman took an MA from Queens College in Jazz Performance, and was a recipient of a Eubie Blake Scholarship.

He was former faculty at 3rd Street Music Settlement House in NYC, Colegio de Musica, Medellin, Colombia, and has recorded with Carlos Averhoff of Irakere as well as various Latin American ensembles; also performed with Donald Byrd, Jerry Bergonzi, Larry Rivers group, Vermont Jazz Ensemble.

Eugene has been commissioned by the Big Band de Medellin to compose and perform, and has given workshops at the university level in jazz composition, jazz theory and harmony, jazz improvisation, jazz pedagogy, and jazz history and appreciation.

Artistic Director, Vermont Jazz Center; Adjunct professor of Music at Universidad de Antioquia and Universidad EAFIT in Colombia, SA