BayTaper.com is an online multimedia documentary featuring original live music recordings and photography from the San Francisco Bay Area creative music scene. Learn More...
Please note that all of the photos, videos, and audio recordings found on this website are copyrighted works being made available for personal, non- commercial use only. These works may not be used for any other purpose without the direct consent of the artists involved. If you are the copyright holder of any material posted on this website and no longer wish it to be made available on the Web, please contact me immediately and I will take it down posthaste.
A few months back, I suggested to Mario Guarneri that he should play a gig at one of my favorite venues in town, the Red Poppy Art House. Well, that suggestion culminated in a fantastic performance by the Guarneri Jazz Quartet on February 1, 2008. The lineup featured Mario on trumpet and flugelhorn, and included Jeffrey Burr on guitar, Omar Clay on drums, and John Wiitala on Bass. Check out this video I shot of their song Baile from the second set of the night, and don’t forget that you can catch these guys playing live at Cafe Divine in North Beach on most Sunday nights.
A few weeks back, I was invited to record and photograph the Trumpet Supergroup playing live at the Jazz School on April 24, 2007. The group featured an amazing lineup of local trumpeters that included Mark Inouye, Mario Guarneri, Dave Scott, Erik Jekabson and Mike Olmos performing a wide assortment of pieces on flugelhorns and Bb, Eb, and piccolo trumpets. That’s five, count ‘em, five trumpets up front — all I can say is, “wow!” As if that weren’t enough, they were backed by the incredible rhythm section of Marcus Shelby on bass, Randy Vincent on guitar, and Jeff Marrs on drums.
Each one of these musicians brings a unique strength and talent to the trumpet that’s all their own, and listening to them all mix, match, and mingle throughout the course of the performance exemplified the deep range and diversity of styles they all bring to the table both individually, as composers and killer soloists, as well as collaboratively through awe-inspiring arrangements of the (mostly) original compositions contributed by each. This is another great example of a local group that doesn’t play together all that often, but when they do, it’s an event not to be missed!
I was recently given a special opportunity to record and photograph the Guarneri Jazz Quartet playing live on November 27, 2006 in the spectacular new Caroline Hume Concert Hall at the new San Francisco Conservatory of Music located near City Hall. The quartet featured Mario Guarneri on trumpet, Randy Vincent on guitar, John Wiitala on contra bass, and Omar Clay on drums. This performance was somewhat of a rare jazz event at the Conservatory, which typically focuses on more classical genres of music, but was made possible because Mario is part of the brass faculty at the school. The band started off the night with a pre-show demonstration and lecture about jazz technique, and then after a small break, played two extremely tight and jammin’ sets of original compositions by Mario and Omar, as well as a few classics from the vast library of Thelonious Monk and Duke Jordan. Below, you will find the photographs I shot that night and a sample track from my recording of the quartet’s killin’ rendition of Jordan’s jazz standard Jordu. You can catch the band live at Cafe Divine in North Beach on most Sunday nights, and you can find more sound clips, info about their upcoming shows, and links to purchase their studio albums on their website. Thanks, and enjoy!
