Esteemed educators, The SUNY Schenectady Faculty Jazz Combo features seasoned performers and composers. They’ve previously opened Music Haven concerts for touring headliners including Sammy Miller & the Congregation in 2022 and the Aditya Prakash Ensemble last August.

 

As Michael Hochanadel reported on Nippertown, they “took an educational tack in its expert big-band bust-out opener. Saxophonist and Music School Dean Christopher Brellochs served as professor, introducing songs and promising/threatening a quiz of players’ names as he introduced everybody: David Gleason, piano; Brian Patneaude, tenor saxophone; Dylan Canterbury, trumpet and flugelhorn; Bobby Kendall, upright bass; Kevin Grudecki, electric guitar; and Bob Halek, drums.

 

“Mia Scirocco’s happy smile would have seemed incongruous singing Big Joe Williams’s sad ‘Everyday I Have the Blues,’ except that she was so clearly delighted to be with this powerful band of colleagues; she’s also on the faculty.”

 

Their repertoire that night also spanned the romantic “The Very Thought of You,” the spunky opener “Cedar’s Blues,” the Patneaude feature “Roy Allen,” and the melodic “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” before Gleason's piano break.

 

Guest Artist trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis is a member of New Orleans jazz royalty - son of the late, great pianist, composer and teacher Ellis Marsalis Jr. and brother of Wynton (trumpet), Branford (saxophone) and Jason Marsalis (drums and vibes). 

 

He has toured internationally with jazz legends such as Ray Charles, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Elvin Jones and Slide Hampton, as well as leading his own groups.

 

An active composer and producer since the age of 17, he has produced over 120 recordings, garnering one Grammy award and several nominations.

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In 2008, he formed the Uptown Jazz Orchestra with a focus on maintaining important jazz traditions such as riff playing, New Orleans polyphony and spontaneous arrangements.

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Inspired by the autism diagnosis of another brother, Mboya Kenyatta, Delfeayo founded the New Orleans-based Uptown Music Theatre, a teaching and community unity group that empowers youth through musical theatre training. He has written sixteen musicals and composed more than 90 songs that introduce kids to jazz through musical theatre and has reached over 5,000 students nationally with his Swinging with the Cool School soft introduction to jazz workshops.

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Delfeayo has recorded eight albums as a leader and many more with his brothers and other stars. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, he earned an MA in jazz performance at the University of Louisville and with his brothers was honored with an NEA Jazz Masters award.