Alex Anest has been teaching, performing, and recording in the Southeast Michigan area since 1996. He founded and leads the Ann Arbor Guitar Trio and is also currently playing with the Alex Anest Trio, Nomad, and Klezmephonic. Alex has studied with Miles Okazaki, Chris Buzzelli, Benny Green, Mark Kirschenmann, and Ellen Rowe. He has also appeared on over 30 albums, mostly recorded in Michigan.

One of Detroit’s most accomplished drummers, Gayelynn McKinney has played for renowned international artists like Aretha Franklin, Freda Payne, Chaka Khan,Benny Golson, Roy Hargrave, Larry Coryell, Marcus Belgrave, Ralphe Armstrong, Roy Ayers, and Geri Allen. She is the recipient of a Kresge Arts Fellowship, a Motor City Music Award and a Detroit Black Music Award. She has performed at the 1996 Olympic Games and at the prestigious Kennedy Center for The Performing Arts, and she has entertained the armed forces in Germany and Italy – and via live broadcast to military bases in Afghanistan. Add a Grammy Nomination to her resume and you quickly realize what an exceptional musician Gayelynn is.

Corey Kendrick is a pianist, composer, recording artist, and educator currently living in Detroit, MI. Praised by Downbeat Magazine’s John Ephland as a “very accomplished, highly gifted jazz pianist” with “a patient, maturing voice,” Kendrick has a skillful touch that is both immediately recognizable and deeply expressive. Kendrick released his debut album, Rootless, in June of 2016, which JazzTimes.com’s Travis Roger, Jr. called “a debut album that stands among the finest albums of the year.”

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Associated Acts include the late great Marcus Belgrave & Richard Groove Holmes, Earl Klugh, Harvey Mason, organissimo & The Supremes.

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Alex Harding was born on April 5, 1967 in Detroit, Michigan. At the age of six, Alex knew what he wanted to do in his lifetime: to be a musician. He started to pursue his dream. Alex started on Drums & a few years later after hearing Grover Washington Jr on the radio playing Mr. Magic Alex switched to the tenor sax. Mr. Harding took band classes in elementary, middle school & high school, entering musical competitions and shows. He chose to attend Northwestern High School so he could study music under the direction of Mr. Ernest Rogers, a renowned musician & teacher. It was during high school that Alex decided to make the baritone sax and bass clarinet his main instruments.

Alex Harding studied music in his early years with Yusef Lateef, Beans Bows and Herbie Williams, and played with Wynton Marsalis and Donald Byrd while still in high school. Alex went on to win music scholarships to the University of Massachusetts and the Aspen School of Music. Alex’s first European engagement in 1990 was in Porgy and Bess. A year later, he went to Mexico to the Arts and Music Festival with percussionist Francisco Mora.

After settling in New York in 1993, and a stint touring with Phatoms, a Haitian group, Alex joined Julius Hemphill’s Saxophone Sextet. He also began performing with Muhal Richard Abrams, Craig Harris, Lester Bowie, Frank Lacey, Oliver Lake and David Murray’s Big Band.

In 1996, Alex joined Hamiet Bluiett’s Baritone Group and appeared with the Mingus Big Band, Jayne Cortez Firespitters and Lester Bowie’s Hip-Hop Philharmonic. He also recorded with Greg Osby, Frank Lowe, David Lee Roth and Rodney Whittaker. The following year, Alex recorded At Doctor King’s Table with the Julius Hemphill Sextet, a CD with Hamiet Bluiett’s Baritone Group, and he made his debut with the Sun Ra Arkestra under Marshall Allen’s leadership. In 1998, Alex was part of the Sun Ra All-Star Project that premiered at the North Sea Jazz Festival and the Montreux-Detroit Jazz Festival. More recently Alex has performed with the Roy Hargrove Big Band and with Aretha Franklin.

In the October ’97 issue of Jazz Times, the review of Hamiet Bluiett’s Baritone Band said that Alex Harding: “…attacked the music with steamroller momentum and uncommon ferocity…it was sheer fireworks.”

Alex Harding has recorded several CD’s for CIMP label and since 2008 he has performed on Broadway and toured with the (3) Tony Award winning show FELA !!!!

A powerful and innovative saxophonist, Alex Harding has a unique and contemporary baritone sound. The sincerity of his musical _expression and the dynamism of his performance reaches out and touch the human spirit and soul.

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Last year, Clif was part of the 2nd Jazz Organ Summit at Hope where he again had the chance to work with Monaco and Gibbs. Clif is a member of several student ensembles, including the Hope College OGD Trio and Jazz Arts Collective, and is the organist for the college’s gospel choir under the direction of prominent jazz vocalist, Edye Evans Hyde. He is a recipient of the Swaby Scholarship, the Freshman Music Prize, Distinguished Artist Award, and the Jazz Alliance of Mid Michigan Izenson Memorial Scholarship. His Hammond Family status has allowed him to meet and make valuable connections with jazz organ greats including the legendary Dr. Lonnie Smith.

You can catch Clif with his group, Dot Org Jazz Organ Combo, as well as other groups, including Paul Carrie and the Soul Sensation, the Thirsty Perch Blues Band, Hope College OGD, and Thornetta Davis. He can regularly be seen at festivals and pubs in Central, West and Northwest Michigan.

Follow Clif and Dot Org:
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Larry Barris started playing guitar at a very young age. By the age of 13, he was already working professionally in and around Detroit with “The Black Nasty,” a well-known local R&B band of the era.
Larry quickly made a name for himself among the Chitlin’ Circuit, playing behind comedians such as Rudy Ray Moore and Redd Foxx.
It wasn’t long before Larry started working with a “who’s who” of Detroit jazz heavyweights, including Marcus Belgrave, Teddy Harris, Donald Walden, Dennis Rowland, Wendell Harrison, Bobby Wright and Rod Lumpkin. He also performed with national artists as they passed through Detroit, such as George Benson, Mary Wilson & The Supremes, Ben E. King, The 5th Dimension, George Burns, Joan Rivers, Earl Klugh, Joe Sample, Richard ‘Groove’ Holmes, Jack McDuff, Dave McMurray, Fabian, Little Anthony & The Imperials, David Ruffin, and Eddie Kendricks, among others.

In 2001, Larry released his eponymous first CD, followed in 2003 by the release of his second CD, Love On Me. Larry officially joined organissimo in December of 2012, a Lansing-based organ trio known for their original material and unique take on everything from the pop music of The Beatles to the neglected gems of classic organist Big John Patton.

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On occasion he would sit in with some of these groups and pester them for information. Spending time in Chicago and later in New York, he met and hung out with his mentor, Larry Young, often visiting the family-owned Newark Club in Young’s hometown of Newark, NJ. He was also privy to playing with the best organ drummers like Joe Dukes and Billy James. And he heard the local contingent of jazz greats like Ahmad Jamal, Art Blakey, Erroll Garner, George Benson, Eddie Jefferson, Mary Lou Williams, and Stanley Turrentine.

His quest for musical knowledge found him on the road when in 1963, in search of rare 78-rpm rhythm & blues records, he began a journey/career of hitchhiking. He did this in the contiguous 48 states of the U.S.; through Canada, Mexico, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, and China; and to the Thailand/Cambodia border. His over 400,000 documented miles of thumbing a ride gained Heid a spot in The Guinness Book of World Records. Some of his journeys led him to the so-called chicken houses and organ rooms of major cities, where he interned with Jimmy Witherspoon, Jimmy Ponder, Sonny Stitt, Grant Green, David “Fathead” Newman, Ira Sullivan, and Mickey Roker, and was a pianist with Don Patterson.

A move to Chicago brought him closer to the urban blues as he worked or recorded with Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and especially Son Seals, Koko Taylor, Fenton Robinson, and Roy Buchanan. He also did two LPs and played in the bands of contemporary jazz guitarist Henry Johnson. Moving to Detroit, he spent two decades there playing in his own groups; helping to revive the career of a local legend of blues guitar and vocals, Johnnie Bassett, as the music director of his Blues Insurgents; and backing the veteran singer Alberta Adams. During and since his time in Detroit, Heid could be found making music soundtracks for adult films in Los Angeles, then touring worldwide for the U.S. State Department as a jazz ambassador, particularly on tours of Japan and Vietnam. In August 2003, Heid played more of the Pacific Rim in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Upon moving back to the Eastern United States, he could be heard on organ and piano engagements at various venues in the Washington, D.C., area. Of his mindset, Heid was quoted as saying “I can’t live a day without playing 1-4-5s,” incorporating those standard blues changes with cool McCoy Tyner minor riffs, vicious funk songs in Japanese, and what he calls Talifunk. “I approach this thing like total war and have been lucky to have avoided a day job.” His hip vernacular, unique vocal language, and risqué sense of humor, melded with his passion for baseball, have made him an entertainer nonpareil.

Artist Biography by Michael G. Nastos for AllMusic.com

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On occasion he would sit in with some of these groups and pester them for information. Spending time in Chicago and later in New York, he met and hung out with his mentor, Larry Young, often visiting the family-owned Newark Club in Young’s hometown of Newark, NJ. He was also privy to playing with the best organ drummers like Joe Dukes and Billy James. And he heard the local contingent of jazz greats like Ahmad Jamal, Art Blakey, Erroll Garner, George Benson, Eddie Jefferson, Mary Lou Williams, and Stanley Turrentine.

His quest for musical knowledge found him on the road when in 1963, in search of rare 78-rpm rhythm & blues records, he began a journey/career of hitchhiking. He did this in the contiguous 48 states of the U.S.; through Canada, Mexico, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, and China; and to the Thailand/Cambodia border. His over 400,000 documented miles of thumbing a ride gained Heid a spot in The Guinness Book of World Records. Some of his journeys led him to the so-called chicken houses and organ rooms of major cities, where he interned with Jimmy Witherspoon, Jimmy Ponder, Sonny Stitt, Grant Green, David “Fathead” Newman, Ira Sullivan, and Mickey Roker, and was a pianist with Don Patterson.

A move to Chicago brought him closer to the urban blues as he worked or recorded with Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and especially Son Seals, Koko Taylor, Fenton Robinson, and Roy Buchanan. He also did two LPs and played in the bands of contemporary jazz guitarist Henry Johnson. Moving to Detroit, he spent two decades there playing in his own groups; helping to revive the career of a local legend of blues guitar and vocals, Johnnie Bassett, as the music director of his Blues Insurgents; and backing the veteran singer Alberta Adams. During and since his time in Detroit, Heid could be found making music soundtracks for adult films in Los Angeles, then touring worldwide for the U.S. State Department as a jazz ambassador, particularly on tours of Japan and Vietnam. In August 2003, Heid played more of the Pacific Rim in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Upon moving back to the Eastern United States, he could be heard on organ and piano engagements at various venues in the Washington, D.C., area. Of his mindset, Heid was quoted as saying “I can’t live a day without playing 1-4-5s,” incorporating those standard blues changes with cool McCoy Tyner minor riffs, vicious funk songs in Japanese, and what he calls Talifunk. “I approach this thing like total war and have been lucky to have avoided a day job.” His hip vernacular, unique vocal language, and risqué sense of humor, melded with his passion for baseball, have made him an entertainer nonpareil.

Artist Biography by Michael G. Nastos for AllMusic.com

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Featuring:

Duncan McMillan-Hammond B3
Matt LoRusso-Guitar
Louis Jones III-Drums

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