Jazz on the Mountain

Pete Malinverni has a career with many facets: he’s led sixteen well-received recordings, including in solo, violin/piano duo, trio, quartet, quintet, choir and big band formats. For eighteen years he served as Minister of Music at the predominantly African-American Devoe Street Baptist Church in Brooklyn, NY and currently serves in that capacity at the Pound Ridge, NY Community Church and as Pianist/Conductor at the Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, NY. He enjoys teaching, too, and is past-Chair of Jazz Studies at Purchase College (SUNY). Pete’s newest recording, “On the Town – Pete Malinverni Plays Leonard Bernstein”, featuring Ugonna Okegwo and Jeff Hamilton, was in the Top Ten for several weeks for Jazz radio airplay, reaching #2 for two weeks. Copies will be available at the shows.

Helen Sung is an award-winning jazz pianist and composer and a Guggenheim Fellow. Originally trained in classical piano and violin, she did her formative jazz studies at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance (renamed the Herbie Hancock Institute in 2019). In addition to her own band and projects, she has performed with such luminaries as Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Regina Carter, Terri Lyne Carrington, Cecile McLorin Salvant, and the Mingus Big Band. She is currently on faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Columbia University, where she also was the inaugural jazz artist-in-residence at its Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute exploring intersections of jazz and neuroscience. Helen is a Steinway Artist.

Loren Schoenberg is Senior Scholar of The National Jazz Museum in Harlem. Mr. Schoenberg is currently on the faculty at The Juilliard School, and previously taught at Manhattan School of Music (graduate division), The New School, The Hartt School, and Brooklyn College. He has lectured at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The White House, The New York Philharmonic, Stanford University, and The Aspen Institute. Mr. Schoenberg has conducted the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) as well as The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, The American Jazz Orchestra and the WDR Jazz Orchestra in Koln, Germany. Mr. Schoenberg, a tenor saxophonist/pianist, has played and recorded with Benny Carter, Benny Goodman, Jimmy Heath, Eddie Durham, Marian McPartland, Clark Terry, John Lewis, Christian McBride, Buck Clayton, and was musical director for Bobby Short from 1997-2005. He also received two GRAMMY awards, for best album notes in 1994 and 2004, and played on GRAMMY-awarded albums as well. Mr. Schoenberg has been published widely (including the New York Times), and his book, The NPR Guide to Jazz , was released in 2003. He was hired by in 2001 to lead the effort to establish The National Jazz Museum in Harlem and served for over a decade as its Executive Director, creating many of its signal programs, and enlisted Christian McBride, Jonathan Batiste, Ken Burns, and Wynton Marsalis to the museum’s mission. A longtime radio host on WBGO-FM, WKCR-FM, and SIRIUS FM, he did occasional features on NPR, and is currently heard on KSDS-FM, San Diego.

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 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.

Keith Balla is a New York-based jazz drummer who began playing at 13 and moved from his native Austin, Texas, to New York at 17 to study at Purchase College. He went on to study with acclaimed educators Kenny Washington and John Riley and quickly became an active member of the New York jazz scene, performing at venues including Smalls, Mezzrow, Smoke, Jazz Gallery, and Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola. Balla has shared the stage with jazz legends including Freddie Redd, Charles Davis, Annie Ross, and Barry Harris, while developing an especially longstanding musical partnership with guitarist Pasquale Grasso. Their Monday night residency at Mezzrow has been a destination for jazz audiences for more than a decade, and the Pasquale Grasso Trio toured extensively with GRAMMY-winning vocalist Samara Joy from 2021–2022. As a sought-after sideman, Balla has also performed with artists including Ari Roland, Chris Byars, Pete Malinverni, Grant Stewart, and Michael Weiss. Beyond New York, he has performed and led educational workshops in 51 countries through the U.S. State Department’s American Music Abroad program.

Dr. Alexander Norris is an internationally acclaimed trumpeter who performs with some of the leading ensembles in jazz and Latin jazz, including the Mingus Big Band and Dynasty, Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Conrad Herwig’s Latin Sides All Stars, the Chris Byars Octet, and the Birdland Latin Jazz Orchestra. He has also performed with the Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Toshiko Akiyoshi’s Jazz Orchestra, Maria Schneider’s Orchestra, and Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and was a member of Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead from 1994–1998. As a sought-after sideman, Norris has recorded on more than 100 albums and performed with artists including Pat Martino, Ron Carter, Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Chris Potter, Brian Blade, John Patitucci, and Helen Sung, as well as Latin jazz and salsa legends such as Eddie Palmieri, Poncho Sanchez, and Rubén Blades. His work has also taken him beyond jazz, with performances alongside Gustavo Dudamel and the New York Philharmonic, Dr. John, Steve Winwood, and Gloria Estefan. Norris holds a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Miami, and has taught at institutions including the New School, Peabody Conservatory, Rutgers University, and the University of Miami. He is also an active clinician and bandleader with five recordings to his name, with his sixth album, Exit Strategy, scheduled for release in February 2027 on SteepleChase Records.