Jazz on the Mountain

Lucy Yeghiazaryan is an American Armenian vocalist who has become a leading voice in American straight-ahead jazz by bringing the real richness of her heritage together with her love for the ultimate American art form. She is a recipient of grants from the Doris Duke Foundation, Chamber Music America, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She has shared the stage with Harold Mabern, Houston Person, Grant Stewart, Terell Stafford, Bernadette Peters, Arto Tuncboyaijian, and many more. She regularly works with the Emmet Cohen trio and can be found performing in and outside of The United States with regular appearances at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Birdland, Mezzrow, Symphony Space, and more.

Wayne Tucker is a trumpeter, composer, arranger, violinist, and vocalist based in New York City. He has released 4 albums under his name and performs regularly with his band, The Bad Mothas in New York City. Wayne has toured and recorded with a diverse array of notables such as jazz musicians Kurt Elling, Al Foster, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Cyrille Aimée; pop acts Taylor Swift, David Crosby, Elvis Costello, Matt Simons, and Eric Hutchinson; r&b singers Ne-Yo and Gabriel Garzon-Montano; hip hop artists Jidenna and Ryan Leslie; and with the rock band Brass Against.
This diversity is represented in Wayne’s group, The Bad Mothas, whose energetic sound features an updated American Songbook, including selections by Michael Jackson or Earth Wind & Fire. Wayne continues to maintain a dedicated presence in the small clubs of New York City alongside a career that makes occasional forays into venues like Madison Square Garden, The Hollywood Bowl, and The Tonight Show, to name a few. Tucker wrote the soundtrack and co-stars in the short film Hotel Bleu.

Gary Smulyan is a baritone saxophonist, a four-time winner of the Down Beat Critic’s and Reader’s Poll’s and a multiple winner of numerous other official polls including the Jazz Journalists Award for Baritone Saxophonist of the Year. He is a six-time GRAMMY award winner for his work with B.B. King, Lovano, Holland, and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. The gifted multi-instrumentalist has shared the stage and the recording studio with a stunning potpourri of luminaries including trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Dizzy Gillespie, saxophonist Stan Getz, pianist Chick Corea, timbales king Tito Puente, and R&B/Blues and soul icons Ray Charles, B.B. King and Diana Ross. These days, Smulyan lives in with his wife, pianist, and conductor Joan Cornachio. He is a faculty member of Amherst College and serves as the artistic director at the Berkshire Hills Music Academy in South Hadley, Massachusetts, a two-year post-secondary music school for eighteen to thirty-year-olds with developmental disabilities.

Ralph Lalama is well known and respected as a top-flight ensemble player with a singular voice as a soloist, embodied in the tenor saxophone. He is a seasoned veteran of the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra and Joe Lovano Nonet, as well as the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, Woody Herman, Buddy Rich, and Jon Faddis Jazz Orchestra. He has earned three Grammys and has ten CDs as a leader, five of them on the distinguished Criss Cross jazz label. Lalama leads his own trio, “Bop Juice,” regularly at Smalls Jazz in NYC. He is an accomplished jazz educator at SUNY Purchase, as well as teaching jazz camps and clinics across the USA and abroad. He is an Official D’Addario Performing Artist. DownBeat jazz reviewer Zan Stewart said, “Lalama is a grand, modern-minded storyteller…a first-class jazz soloist.”

Anaïs Reno is an 18-year-old LaGuardia High School graduate who is currently attending SUNY Purchase as a jazz major. Winning the Forté International Competition, Great American Songbook Competition, The Mabel Mercer Competition, the Julie Wilson award and being a winner and Finalist in YoungArts, Anaïs has performed in New York at important venues such as Birdland, Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, The Django, Chris’ Jazz Café in Philadelphia, and many others. Her album, “Lovesome Thing: Anaïs Reno Sings Ellington & Strayhorn”, which was recorded with Emmet Cohen when Anaïs was 16, received critical acclaim and rose to number 6 on the jazz chart. She was featured in the “New York State of Mind” video with Idina Menzel and Stephen Colbert and was on national television singing “America the Beautiful” for the Mets/Yankees 9/11 game last year. She performed in Houston, Cleveland, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and London this last spring, and opened the baseball season on April 15th at Citi Field for the Mets. Additionally, Anaïs will be coming out with a new album soon, featuring Peter Bernstein, David Wong, and Joe Farnsworth.

Ricky Riccardi is the Director of Research Collections for the Louis Armstrong House Museum and author of What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years. He runs the online blog, “The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong,” at dippermouth.blogspot.com and has given lectures on Armstrong at venues around the world, including the Institute of Jazz Studies, the Satchmo Summerfest, the Bristol International Jazz and Blues Festival and the Monterey Jazz Festival. In the fall of 2015, he taught a “Music of Louis Armstrong” graduate course at Queens College, in addition to hosting various listening parties at Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has recently co-produced Satchmo at Symphony Hall 65th Anniversary: The Complete Concert for Universal Music and Columbia and RCA Victor Live Recordings of Louis Armstrong and the All Stars for Mosaic Records. He is also a jazz pianist based out of Toms River, NJ, and received his Master’s in Jazz History and Research from Rutgers University.

Ugonna Okegwo is one of the most distinctive and sought-after jazz bassists in the world. Critics across the globe have praised him for his rich tone, supple sense of swing, stylistic range, and inventiveness. These qualities have not only earned him a place on the bandstand with jazz legends as diverse as Clark Terry, Benny Golson, Pharoah Sanders, and Joseph Jarman – they have established him as one of the leading lights of a younger generation redefining jazz for the new century. Born in 1962 in London to a German mother and Nigerian father, Okegwo was raised in Germany, studying with American expatriates, bassist Jay Oliver, and pianist Walter Norris. There Okegwo caught the attention of trombonist and Mingus alum, Lou Blackburn, who invited Okegwo to tour Europe with his Afro-Jazz group “Mombasa”. In 1989, Okegwo made the leap to Manhattan and began playing with musicians like saxophone legends Big Nick Nicholas, Junior Cook, and James Spaulding. Okegwo is also a bandleader taking his quartet to Europe and documented the group with a recording entitled “UOniverse” [Satchmo Jazz]. The material, which consists of his compositions and brilliantly arranged standards, draws from a wide range of influences, including jazz, African, funk, and classical music.

Aaron Seeber, a 29-year-old drummer living in Queens, NY is making his name as an emerging jazz drummer in New York City. As a performer, Seeber has had the incredible opportunity to share the stage with greats Eric Reed, Pete Malinverni, Warren Wolf, Grant Stewart, Cyrille Aimée, Jeremy Pelt, Paul Bollenback, Tim Green, Ugonna Okegwo, Bruce Harris, Gary Smulyan, Mike Ledonne, Freddie Redd, Butch Warren, Chuck Redd, and many others. He has performed internationally with The Warren Wolf Trio and nationally with the grammy award-winning group, The New York Voices. Aaron has played at many of the renowned venues and festivals around the world including Blues Alley, Marian’s Jazz Room (Switzerland), The Blue Note New York, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Birdland, The Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival, Twins Jazz, The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, The Caramoor Jazz Festival, The DC Jazz Festival, and The Falcon. Seeber recently recorded his debut record “First Move” featuring Warren Wolf, Tim Green, Sullivan Fortner, and Ugonna Okegwo. It will be released on May 13th, 2022, on Cellar Live Records.

Scott Robinson, one of today’s most wide-ranging instrumentalists, has been heard on tenor sax with Buck Clayton’s band, on trumpet with Lionel Hampton’s quintet, on alto clarinet with Paquito D’Rivera’s clarinet quartet, and on bass sax with the New York City Opera. On these and other instruments, he has been heard with a cross-section of jazz greats representing nearly every imaginable style of music, from Braff to Braxton. His discography now includes more than 190 recordings. Scott has performed in some 30 nations, in such diverse venues as Carnegie Hall, the Village Vanguard, the Library of Congress, and the Vienna Opera House. Scott’s group was selected to be the closing act at the Knitting Factory’s Sun Ra Festival in New York City. Scott has also written magazine articles and liner notes and was an invited speaker at the Congressional Black Caucus Jazz Forum in Washington, D.C.

Helen Sung is a pianist/composer who hails from Houston, TX, where she attended the High School for the Performing & Visual Arts. An aspiring classical pianist before jazz intervened during undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin, Sung went on to graduate from the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance (at the New England Conservatory) and win the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Jazz Piano Competition. Now based in New York City, Sung has worked with such luminaries as the late Clark Terry, Ron Carter, Steve Turre, Wayne Shorter, and MacArthur Fellow Regina Carter. With appearances at major festivals/venues including Newport, Monterey, Detroit, SFJAZZ, and Carnegie Hall, Sung is also stepping onto the international stage: her “NuGenerations” Project toured southern Africa as a US State Department Jazz Ambassador and other engagements include a European CD Release Tour for Anthem, the London Jazz Festival, and Shanghai’s “JZ Festival.

Matt Wilson, a New York-based drummer and Grammy nominee, is one of today’s most celebrated jazz artists. He is universally recognized for his musical and melodic drumming style as well as for being a gifted composer, bandleader, producer, and teaching artist. Wilson’s positive energy, sense of humor, and ability to explore a broad range of musical settings keep him in constant demand. In addition, Wilson’s dedication to jazz has helped establish him as a beloved world ambassador for the music, on and off the bandstand. Wilson leads the Matt Wilson Quartet, Arts and Crafts, Christmas Tree-O, and the Carl Sandburg Project. He has appeared on 250 CDs as a sideman and has released 9 as a leader for Palmetto Records. Wilson was featured on the covers of both Downbeat and Jazz Times magazines in November 2009 and was voted #1 Rising Star Drummer in the Downbeat Critic’s Poll for 5 consecutive years. The readers of Jazz Times recently chose him as one of the top 4 drummers in the 2010 Readers Poll. In 2003, he was voted Drummer of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association.

Bio coming soon.

More details to come.

Simon Ribas

Simon Ribas is a 21-year-old drummer originally from Rochester, New York. Currently studying at SUNY Purchase, Simon has spent time listening, learning, and playing with great musicians in New York City and surrounding areas.

Nate Knipscher is a 21-year-old guitarist from Binghamton, NY.  He attends SUNY Purchase College and has studied with Paul Meyers and Pasquale Grasso.  When he isn’t playing guitar, he might be found launching model rockets, camping, or cooking tofu.

Awan Rashad is a saxophonist born and raised in Albany, NY. He is a current senior at SUNY Purchase and studies with some of the greatest jazz musicians today such as Ralph Lalama and Gary Smulyan. Awan tries to stick to the sound of jazz from the Hard Bop era, while simultaneously adding his own modern voice to the music.