The UC Jazz Club was founded by the students of UC Jazz Ensembles and its faculty. Our goal is to share our fine tradition of Jazz with our members and the community at large. UC Jazz Ensembles have been teaching students since 1966. We hope our members will enjoy our monthly newsletter, our performances and most importantly we hope you will support our effort to expand our popular program. We invite donors and volunteers to contineue to support our growing program and to join us now. The UC Jazz Club offers several unique sponsorship opportunities which will support us in our goal to remodel the UC Jazz studios. With your support we will also maintain and grow our current resources in the studios. This includes the purchase and maintenance of our equipment, expanding and renovating our practice areas, adding to our jazz library and ultimately making recordings of live performances of our big band and ensembles. Our goal is to uphold the UC Jazz tradition which has enchanted the world. We have taught students how to carry on this wonderful musical tradition with great success. Jazz has become mainstream and is becoming increasingly popular. Please contact Ted Moore, director of UC Jazz Ensembles to learn about the program. You may also contact RioVida Networks for assistance to set up interviews with the faculty, students and fund-raising committee.
“Music makes people feel! That’s what it’s all about.”
— Frankye Kelly
When people hear Frankye Kelly sing – they understand first hand what a true Diva is all about. Listening to her perform makes you feel like you are in the presence of true greatness. Her passion and sweetness comes across in some songs, her passion and strength in others and at all times it is performed with true class.
It was obvious from an early age that Frankye Kelly would be a singer. Living in Jackson, Mississippi for a few years with her grandparents, she remembers performing in a play when she was just three. Since her father was in the Air Force, her childhood was spent living in many different locations including California, Minnesota, Germany and Delaware and back to California. She heard the music of Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Sarah Vaughan along the way as well as Fats Domino and Little Richard although most of her early singing was in church, acapella groups and choirs. She got married very young and devoted herself to her children until they were grown.
After her children were grown Frankye Kelly decided to start performing jazz. At a family reunion Frankye received important guidance from her cousin, the late great blues master Albert Collins, click to see U-tube Albert Collins famous “Iceman” performance. The main thing Albert told her is that it is up to her to please and reach her audience, and he told her to always sing what she felt. He flew Frankye Kelly to a lot of his concerts to have her experience life of a musician and to see what is was like. She saw how hard he worked and was inspired.
Nine years after Frankye had moved to San Francisco, in 1989, Frankye Kelly pursued her dream of being a jazz singer. She explained: “I wanted to sing jazz because of its freedom and because that way I could express myself the way I wanted. I studied jazz not only to learn the music but to learn about myself. I didn’t want to listen too closely to singers because I didn’t want to copy anyone, so instead I listened constantly to Miles Davis. I always loved the way he played. He would take his time, not rushing into it, and he played with a lot of feeling.”
Frankye has recorded three CDs: The Night is Young was recorded at Kimball’s West and showed those at the time who were unfamiliar with her just how talented a jazz singer she is, serving as a strong introduction. My Life, More Than It Is: Not Just the Blues is an appealing mixture of pop, blues, R&B and jazz, displaying a great deal of variety but staying consistently rewarding. Her most recent CD,Live at Yoshi’s, Frankye Kelly Sings Songs For My Father, was recorded on several occasions at Yoshi’s Jazz House, and is a collection of some of her favorite jazz songs. It is dedicated to her father who was at all of the sessions and has since passed away.
Frankye Kelly will be leaving for Thailand for a four month tour next month. We are fortunate to have this living legend chose the Bay Area as her home. In 2006, Frankye Kelly spent six months singing in China, performing in Shanghai during a pair of lengthy visits. She regularly performs in France, Mexico, Japan and China and throughout the US. She has sung at many jazz festivals including the San Francisco Jazz Festival, the San Jose Jazz Festival and the Fillmore Jazz Festival. Frankye Kelly has performed in the Bay Area at Yoshi’s, “Top of the Mark” at the Mark Hopkins Hotel (with pop superstar Ricardo Scales), Jazz at Pearl’s, Kimball’s East, Kimball’s West and at the Ritz Carlton Hotels.
Frankye Kelly is a busy woman aside of touring and performing locally, she teaches Jazz workshops in Napa, CA and France, spends time with young girls in the community, hosts a TV show “Jazz with Frankye” now in its 10th season, watch her interview with another Bay Area Great – Wayne Wallace.
Frankye Kelly often performs at the prestigious JAZZschool in Berkeley, CA.
Steve Campos directing the Big Band at the UC Jazz Ensembes
“Music is a fair and glorious gift of God. I am strongly persuaded that after theology there is no art that can be placed on the same level with music.” Steve Campos favorite quote is by religious founder Martin Luther
Steve Campos, teaches Trumpet for Big Band
Mr. Campos has performed with Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Dr. John, Big Brother and the Holding Co., Boz Scaggs, Rosemary Clooney, Ray Brown’s Big Band, Dave Eshleman’s Jazz Garden, Full Faith and Credit, Rudy Salvini, and various other acts and bands.
As performer, Steve Campos has had the opportunity to play and record with some of L.A.’s best. He has worked professionally with jazz artists Alan Pasqua, Dave Carpenter, Joe Labarbara, Isaac Smith, Jason Goldman, Kristin Korb, Tim Davies, and others as well as with pop icons A.J. McClean and Colin Hay. He received the Friends of Jazz Scholarship for being an outstanding performer in the jazz field. He participates in the ASMAC composers’ workshop where he worked with established composers Bob Florence and Kim Richmond.
Steve Campos completed his studies in jazz, classical, and film composition and orchestration at the University of Southern California in May of 2004. He was the recipient of the prestigious Randy Newman Scholarship while attending USC and was commissioned to arrange and conduct a Newman original for symphony orchestra in honor of Randy Newman’s appearance at the annual Charles Dickens Dinner. Steve Campos’ works are performed by the Kim Richmond Jazz Orchestra, the Billy Frenzel Jazz Orchestra, the USC Thornton Symphony Orchestra, the USC Thornton Jazz Orchestra, as well as the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts Jazz Ensemble.
Steve Campos In the News
The trumpet section, (Mike Vax, Dennis Noday, John Harner, Steve Campos and Steve Huffsteter) to quote Doug Hughes, “could peel off that old wallpaper you need removed in your home.” www.bigbandjazz.net
“Steve is a young man with a genius for music. He shows great knowledge, perception and ability to express musical ideas in a variety of styles. He is well equipped with the tools of composition, orchestration, and arranging in a variety of styles. His aptitude for film scoring is evident in his work, whether for full orchestra or smaller ensemble. He is well versed in pop, classical and jazz sounds and textures. Steve is someone to watch as a new and fresh voice on the music scene. Add to this his enormous prowess as a brilliant jazz trumpet soloist, and you have something very special.” Kim Richmond saxophonist/grammy nominated composer
“This is one special jazz vocal debut album from Los Angeles area-based Judy Wexler, based upon the musicians and recording studio. Thirteen well-chosen tunes reflect a wide spectrum of popular music, and nary a one can be accused of being overexposed over the decades. the 1960s tune “Down Here On The Ground,” lifted from the film Cool Hand Luke and now a jazz standard, is also taken in a midtempo groove and features a Steven Campos trumpet solo. This album stands miles ahead in the proliferating femme jazz vocal field. I can only hope that it will find its way to the in-baskets of the various jazz radio programmers, and fast! Michael Gladstone, www.allaboutjazz.com
Produced by Barbara Brighton, “Easy on the Heart” has one memorable performance after another. The repertoire is filled with superior obscurities and occasional standards, with highlights including Henry Mancini’s “Moment to Moment,” Oscar Brown’s “Humdrum Blues,” a touching “Tell Him I Said Hello,” and “Down Here on the Ground.” The arrangements expertly utilize pianist Alan Pasqua’s trio (with bassist Darek Oles and drummer Tim Pleasant), Bob Sheppard’s reeds (which include bass clarinet and soprano), and trumpeter Steven Campos. Jazziz Magazine
On The Long and the Short of It, the Bay Area-based Michael O’Neill Quintet has devised a unique role for featured singer Kenny Washington. Washington sings a number of standards in a fairly straightforward manner, but on the originals by O’Neill, he is essentially used as another horn, vocalizing the melody or harmony along with the horns of O’Neill and Steve Campos. Stephen Latessa www.allaboutjazz.com
Arranger/conductor/keyboardist Frank Martin has performed and/or recorded with a variety of artists that include Andrea Bocelli, Sting, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Steve Winwood, Whitney Houston, Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Chris Isaak, Tevin Campbell, Cheryl Crow, Philip Bailey, James Taylor, Joe Cocker, Billy Joel, and Madonna.
In the jazz world of music his performance credits include Flora Purim & Airto Moriera, Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, Narada Michael Walden, Stanley Jordan, Dizzy Gillespie, Mel Torme, Bobby McFerrin, John Handy, Ramsey Lewis, Joe Farrell, and the Slide Hampton Big Band. Orchestra performances included concerts with the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Lukes (New York Philharmonic Orchestra).
As a producer he has worked with such artists as Al Jarreau, Lisa Fischer, Bobby McFerrin’s Voicestra, the Award Winning A Cappella group SoVoSo, Gospel vocalists NuVision, story telling Jazz vocalist Rhiannon, Jazz guitarist Mimi Fox featuring organist Joey DeFrancesco and vocalist Angela Bofill, jazz vocalist Karin Blixt featuring Buddy Montgomery, Russell Ferrante, Bruce Forman, Alex Acuna, and William Kennedy, as well as Dutch vocalist Ellen Honert featuring Dori Caymmi, Abraham Laboriel, Turtle Island String Quartet, Tuck & Patti, and Pedro Eustache.
As Musical Director he has toured with such artists as Patti Austin, Angela Bofill, Narada Michael Walden, Mickey Thomas, Roy Ares, Tevin Campbell, and Clarence Clemens.
For two years he also worked as assistant Musical Director for The Afternoon Show on KPIX Television in San Francisco, California. Currently on staff as an educator at the Jazzschool in Berkeley, California, he is in demand as a clinician both in the United States, having taught at the Naropa Institute in Boulder Colorado, Stanford Jazz Workshops at Stanford University, as well as in Europe at the acclaimed SAMI Institute in Sweden. Annual music summer camps include JazzCampWest and the Lafayette Summer Music Workshops.
