Jeff Rupert returns to the Live Oak!

Friday, March 6th at the Live Oak Cultural Center: saxophonist Jeff Rupert will return to the Live Oak Center in March, with James Hall back on the vibraphone, John Olearchick on keyboard, and Doug Mathews on double bass. A special guest, McClenty Hunter, will join on the drums. Doors open at 6:45 with the music starting around 7:30 PM. Free admission!

Jeff Rupert is a tenor and alto saxophone player, and professor of Jazz Studies at the University of Central Florida. He's also the leader of a jazz ensemble of UCF players, The Flying Horse Big Band. He recently recorded and released an album with jazz pianist Kenny Barron, Peter Washington, and Joe Farnsworth.

James Hall is a vibraphone player, pianist, and composer based in New Smyrna Beach. In his hometown of Pleasanton, California, he performed with numerous jazz musicians including Matt Finders, Andrew Speight, Anton Schwartz, Michael Marcus, Roger Glenn, and Erik Jekabson. Upon moving to Florida in 2019, he has performed with a wide range of jazz musicians including Antonio Escapa, Jeff Rupert, Scott Dickinson, the Orlando Jazz Orchestra, Tom Dietz, and Bobby Koelble, just to name a few, in the straight-ahead jazz and Latin spheres.

Pianist John Olearchick has been exploring the world of classical, jazz, and collaborative piano, as well as honing the craft of teaching music to all ages and skill levels. Over the course of this journey, he has earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music, taught hundreds of private music lessons, lectured at the University of Pittsburgh in Greensburg, Valencia College and the University of Central Florida, and performed countless jazz, classical, and musical theatre gigs from Orlando to Los Angeles.

Bassist Doug Mathews has performed extensively in Central Florida with jazz musicians including Sam Rivers Terry Myers, Ed Metz, and the late Chris Cortez. A regular at the Blue Bamboo, he is also a veteran of the Sam Rivers Rejuvenation Orchestra and participated in multiple albums with the saxophone player during the 1990s.

McClenty is a Grammy-nominated drummer who has worked with jazz icons such as Lou Donaldson, Cedar Walton, Jimmy Heath, Kenny Garrett, Buster Williams and Curtis Fuller, among others. In the August 2019 edition of Downbeat magazine, McClenty has been acknowledged as a rising star, as well in Modern Drummer magazine Readers Poll 2017 and in February 2016 edition of Modern Drummer. In 2017, McClenty debut as a leader and composer on The Groove Hunter (2017) receiving 4 stars in Downbeat magazine, with a raving review in Modern Drummer, among others. His masterful work can also be heard on several notable recordings: Dave Stryker’s hit records Eight Track series (2019), The Stryker & Slagel Band’s Expand (2016), Dave Styrker’s Messin With Mr. T (2015), Javon Jackson’s Live at Smoke: Expression (2013) and Kenny Garrett’s Grammy-nominated LP Pushing The World Away (2013).

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