The Music Department at Santa Rosa Junior College will host the Bennett Friedman Jazz Quartet in concert March 15. The concert will feature talent including saxophonist and SRJC teacher Bennett Friedman, pianist Larry Dunlap, bassist Andrew Emer and drummer David Rokeach.
Friedman, who coordinated the concert and chose the performers, hopes that this performance will lure more people to jazz and inspire his students.
“I make it work so it’s worth somebody’s while. I get the best people I can and the people I think I can have fun with,” Friedman said.
The performance will feature original pieces by Friedman and some audience suggestions he has worked on. The guest invited aid immensely to the preparation.
“You can accomplish your goals pretty fast, you have to. What happens is you have maybe a two-hour rehearsal and then you’re playing for the public, so you need to be really sharp on your skills,” Friedman said.
Friedman is a National Endowment for the Arts recipient and former Jazz Ensemble director at San Francisco State University, where he served for eight years. He has been an instructor at SRJC since 1977, where he was previously chair of the music department.
Friedman graduated from Boston’s Berklee College of Music and received his Master’s Degree in Music from San Francisco State University. He is currently the head of jazz studies at SRJC and was recently featured as a performer at the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, The Kuumba Jazz Center in Santa Cruz and the Monterey Jazz Festival. Friedman has been described as a “San Francisco Jazz Legend” by fellow saxophonist Tom Alexander.
Dunlap, a San Francisco local, has been praised as “remarkable and versatile” and “one of the best jazz pianists around” by the San Francisco Chronicle. Since 1983 Dunlap has served as pianist for the British diva Cleo Laine. His collaborations include works with Mark Murphy, Joe Williams and Sheila Jordan as well as jazz instrumentalists Gerry Mulligan, Art Farmer and Marc Johnson. Dunlap also frequently performs with his wife, vocalist Bobbe Norris, who’s known for drawing the best notes out of songs. Together they have toured the U.S., Japan, Canada and other countries.
Emer is an adjunct faculty member at SRJC as a string bass and electric bass instructor. Although Emer is a San Francisco local, he recently spent 10 years in New York working with a variety of artists including Lee Konitz, Donald Byrd, Jason Moran and Jeff Ballard. In 2007 Emer worked with Michael Cain to score a play for the Labyrith Theater Company with co-artistic directors John Ortiz and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The play, “A View From 151st Street,” ran for a successful 38 shows. Emer has toured since then with various jazz acts and several educational programs including the Lake Tahoe Jazz Camp for Kids.
Rokeach is a longtime Bay Area resident, known for playing with well-known artists like Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. His television appearances including The Rosie O’Donnell Show, The View and Good Morning America. He’s recently played for the Broadway shows “Jersey Boys,” “Les Miserables” and “Ragtime.” Rokeach worked with Bay Area Composer Joel Evans to record for numerous shows and motion pictures including “The X-Files,” “Sex and the City” and “The O.C.” Rokeach currently teaches at the Berkeley Jazz School and has also been a regular faculty member at the Stanford Jazz workshop and at the Rhythmic Concepts Jazz Camp West.
Friedman has gotten to know these artists over years of being in the music industry so the chemistry on stage will be stunning. The show will start at 8 p.m. in the Newman Auditorium on the SRJC campus. General admission is $10 and $5 for students and seniors. Parking is not included.
For more information on this event and future music performances please visit the concerts calendar at: http://www.santarosa.edu/music/concerts.php
