Events

Gus Alva

Gus Alva is a Los Angeles based artist representing his South Central roots via structural painting, sculpture, and fashion-textile. In practice, Alva aspires to communicate through his work a love and appreciation for the cultural richness that exists within the vastness of the city.

Alva draws from his architectural familiar – exploring the front-facing infrastructures that act as a canvas for the passing of time and the cover up of its decay. Showcasing works of grand landscape whose elements clash and collaborate in a layering of angles, colors, patterns and textures – a catalogue of elements that Alva has collected and carried with him since adolescence. Each of his pieces is meticulously constructed from raw materials hand-sourced in local hardware stores (Fereterias) with materials restructured or repurposed from one piece to be utilized in the next.

By creating art in order to strike comfort even while acknowledging the cycles of our reality, Alva’s intention is to share work that delivers the same hope and resilience he carries as a teaching from his experiences in his neighborhood.

Nataša Prosenc Stearns

Slovenian born visual artist and filmmaker Nataša Prosenc Stearns moved to Los Angeles on a Fulbright Grant for her MFA at CalArts.  She lives and works in Venice, California and in Ljubljana Slovenia.
Nataša’s work has been featured at the Venice Biennale, in Douloun Museum of Art in Shanghai, ARCO Fair in Madrid, Spazio Erasmus Brera in Milan, Museum of Modern Art in Slovenia, Lancaster Museum of Art, Tel Aviv Museum of Art and in numerous festivals. She is a recipient of the Durffee and Soros Grants among others. Her feature film Souvenir is available on Netflix and on Amazon. Most recently she completed a new body of work for a contemporary opera Code L.

Samuel Pace

Born to a mother and father from the Deep South, who followed the Great Black Migration west seeking better opportunities, Samuel M. Pace’s talents were given the chance to flourish. Encouraged by both parents to express his creative abilities, he continued developing his skills throughout high school where he earned a Fine Arts scholarship.
During high school and college, Sam also expanded his energies to mastering the martial arts. Excelling even in this area, he became a world ranked tournament fighter.
In 1989 Sam moved to Europe where he began developing his current style, using Jazz and Blues as the subject matter. His unique interpretation comingles the moods and sounds of contemporary and 1920s Black Renaissance Jazz and Blues artists into a visual narrative. His works vary in several different mediums from acrylic on canvas, wood, and collage, to discarded recyclable objects.
Among his credits, Sam has produced works for such notables and organizations as the president of an investment company, vice president of Blue Note Records, Los Angeles Urban League, and entertainers Nancy Wilson, Poncho Sanchez, Cassandra Wilson, and Eddie Palmarie.
Commissioned works include Drummer Elvin Jones for the Playboy Jazz Festival, Vancouver Wine and Jazz Festival, Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, Central Avenue Jazz Festival, and Watts Towers Jazz Festival.

“I began creating my works using Jazz and Blues music as the subject matter, in the late 1980, while living in Europe My work reflects the moods and sounds of the music that I hear.

I interpret the music through my creative pieces, which are principally paintings.

My pieces are my way of blending jazz and blues music into my interpretation of a visual narrative. My works vary in several different mediums from acrylic on canvas, wood, and collage to discarded recyclable objects.”

LeRoy Downs

LeRoy Downs, known as “The Jazzcat”, has been an icon in the jazz industry for the past two decades. The Los Angeles jazz radio program & festival host, journalist, television producer, curator and concert series producer currently broadcasts on 89.9 FM KCRW on the show called “Just Jazz”.

Downs also curates the weekly Just Jazz Concert Series, partnering with a myriad of venues here in Los Angeles which has become host to many premier jazz musicians around the world. “My vision and goal is to bring an eclectic sonic experience of jazz to my listeners. A blend of music, style, culture, love and a voice for the unsung. A sense of openness and understanding to an art form that so often explores vast cerebral beauty and the colors of the continuum of sound. A mix of old and new dreams that bridge generations, colors, cultures, and politics while letting the natural vibrations of the harmonies and melodies inspire new visions of self-discovery!”

LeRoy has also been busy hosting many jazz festivals and performances including more that 15 years with the Monterey Jazz Festival, the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival, the Central Avenue Jazz Festival, the Angel City Jazz Festival, The Playboy Jazz Cruise, The Jazz Cruise, Winter Jazz Fest in New York, the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz performances as well as the Just Jazz Series.

LeRoy developed an entertaining jazz pilot television program called “Hangin’ with the Jazzcats” that eventually led to a partnership with Emmy award winning television producer Fred Smith, a forty year veteran at CBS Television. The culmination of experience comes together as decades jazz and television knowledge are now aligned and working towards some lofty goals in the music!

Under the umbrella of All Music Television, the amalgamation of work produced such programs and events such as “Weekend Music”, “Live from The Blue Whale”, “The Jazz Creative”, “Christmas Jazz with LeRoy Downs”, “Musicians Talk Race in America”, “Miles in May”, “Live from the Lobby”, “Backstage Pass”, “Sound Check”, “The Jazzcat Brunch” and more! You can enjoy all of these programs, interviews, articles and jazz radio broadcasts and more on “The Just Jazz App”, as well as listen to progressive music on his 24-7 online radio station called “Sounds and Colors Radio”.

There are some great plans, partnerships and collaborations for future endeavors and LeRoy Downs will certainly be there continuing to carry the torch, push the music forward, and once again, return the sound to it’s classic prominence!

Miller Wrenn

Miller Wrenn is a Los Angeles-based bassist and composer-improviser. He works primarily in the fields of avant-garde jazz, new, creative, and improvised music, and has been fortunate to do so with artists such as Vinny Golia, Eyvind Kang, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Stephanie Richards, Dan Rosenboom, Alex Cline, and many others.

Nicole McCabe

Preserving the warm buzz of early bebop while bravely exploring the jazz fusion of her contemporaries, LA alto saxophonist and composer Nicole McCabe is reaching beyond traditional jazz to blend a broad range of styles, making her one of the most compelling young composers and players in today’s West Coast jazz scene. Nicole has shared the stage with musicians such as George Colligan, Peter Erskine, Chuck Israels, Terri Lyne Carrington, Patrice Rushen, Bob Shepard, Jacob Mann, and Doug Webb.

Randal Fisher

Randal Fisher is a Los Angeles based tenor saxophonist. He picked up the clarinet at age 11 and added the Tenor sax at 13. Randal is an up and coming jazz musician who can hold his own among the legends in the business. At a very earl stage he had one of the best teachers in the business, Ricky Washington.

While currently playing in his own jazz ensemble, Randal also works with a lot of household names like Aloe Black, Ethio Cali, Dexter Story and many more… He has accompanied world music legends like Mahamoud Ahmed from Ethiopia and artists like Miguel Atwood Ferguson, Mark deClive Lowe, Kamasi Washington, Lukas Graham, the Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra, Meklit Hadero, to name a few.

LA Jazz Connection, Josh Mellicker

Josh started playing guitar at the age of 5, and booked his first paying gig within the first year. After first hearing Joe Pass’s “Virtuoso” album as a your teenager, he became obsessed with attaining proficiency playing jazz, and spent hours every day dropping a record needle on Joe Pass’s records to study Pass’s licks over and over.

At 17, he moved to Portland, Oregon, where he had the privilege to play with a variety of well known jazz artists including Mel Brown, Paul Wertico, Doug Rodby, Leroy Vinnegar, Ben Wolfe, Phil Baker, Eddie Weid and Mark Simon, along with several local jazz ensembles, as well as playing and arranging for the Mt. Hood College “A” Lab Band.

Shortly thereafter, Josh quit guitar and rarely played for about 35 years, moving to Los Angeles and pursuing success as an entrepreneur.

He recently started playing jazz guitar again, forming a group called “LA Jazz Connection” with vocalist Michelle, and has enjoyed sharing a bandstand with many world class jazz artists including John Leftwich, Katisse Buckingham, Steve Hass, Abe Lagrimas Jr., Dan Schnelle, Bob Sheppard, Danny Janklow, Anthony Fung, Doug Webb, Logan Kane, Nicole McCabe, Dave Binney, Charles Ruggerio and many others.