John Franzosa Music Projects
Music for Weddings, Functions & Events
Small Group Projects: Jazz for Dancing or Listening
From
small group jazz to big band swing to rock and funk, I've played sax,
reeds, and keyboards with a variety of bands north of Boston. Now, I'm
fronting groups in various combinations - duos, trios, quartets, quintets
- performing at clubs, restaurants, dances, festivals and concerts throughout
northern New England.
My passion is small group jazz, - the sound I grew up with, typified by classic recordings of the Blue Note years: Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon and others. Growing up in the Hartford, CT, area you could hear great music almost any time. In those days, clubs would book bands by the week; some would hire groups from New York on a Sunday afternoon or bring up soloists to play with a house trio on Monday nights. It was easy to hear Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Zoot Sims, Dexter Gordon. We'd sit in the underage section all afternoon or evening. Times are different, but there are a lot of people who want to hear live music and quite a few venues that offer it because there is nothing like being there when the music is being created.
As any musician will tell you, it's good to be versatile: I also play cocktail piano, and work with local dance bands, swing, rock, wedding, and funk bands on sax and piano. I've recorded with a couple of these bands and was working with a local blues band when we won the Portsmouth Battle of the Blues Bands competition and went on to compete in a regional competition in Memphis.
Small Group Projects is the group that I've been leading for the last few years. We work as a quartet, trio or duo depending on the situation. But however many of us there are, we specialize in 'straight-ahead' swing, ballads, blues and Latin. Here are a few mp3 samples from our CD:
And here's my schedule. We hope to see you.