Latest News

A new venue of ours is the Hollywood Studio Bar & Grill, at Sunset and Gower, every 6-8 weeks. A beautiful room, with a grand piano and great food, houses our group of performers fantastically!

Our "home" for the special "Four Souls" show is The Jazz Bakery in Culver City. This is a wonderful performance venue, one of the best in L.A. See our calendar for more information on these events.

Our membership is growing! When the Jazz Vocal Coalition, an organization with similar goals, dissolved in October 2006 after being together for several years, some of it's members joined us. One of our founders, Cathy Segal-Garcia, was one of the co-founders of that organization also.

Past News

We had a great turn out at the Benefit for Bili Redd and Van Gray on July 8, 2007 at the Sportsmens Lodge. Kevin O’Neil brought a couple of members from the Radiant Voices Choir’, Patrice Quinn and Michole White and gave a great performance. Patrice Belmaster gave a stirring performance, as did many others who turned out for the guys. Some of the vocalists that performed included Cathy Segal Garcia, Ann Mack, Robert Walker, James Geralden, Lucy Blanco, Linda Smith, Dini Clarke and we can’t forget the guests of honor themselves. Van Gray entertained us from the comfort of his Congo drums with some of his original poetry and Bili Redd touched our hearts with a great rendition of “Willow Weep for Me.” Before he was done a big group of us singers joined in to take the piece out with some background vocals. It was a moving and heartwarming experience. The very talented Gayle LaRone and James Geralden held a very entertaining auction of some classic jazz records from the private collection of Cathy’s husband, Gary Hoffman.

We also had a great turn out of musicians. The house band was led by pianist Eddie Olivieri, Gerald Ballard on drums and Kevin O’Neil on bass. Other musicians that came out for the cause and joined in the musical festivities were Joshua “Natural Sounds” Spiegelman, Guy Mack, Jack LeCompte, Hideyatsu Karose, Michael Andrews, and many others. All in all it was a wonderful afternoon, and we accomplished our mission to raise the spirits in honor of two very special soldiers of jazz.

The California Pop and Jazz Council would like to recognize the following contributors to this event:

On behalf of Bili Redd Thedford and Van Gray, we thank you for your support!

In March of 2007 we had our First Annual Awards Event, held at the world famous Jazz Bakery in L.A. Our Event honored composer/pianist/singer/teacher/actor Dini Clarke... a local hero! We also honored Rose Gales, a major contributor in our music family in L.A., and clubs such as The Jazz Bakery, The Spot, The Sportsmen's Lodge, The World Stage, Giannelli Square, and the jazz paper...The L.A. Jazz Scene. We had in attendance 200 friends and fans from Los Angeles and the surrounding area. Food, drink, speeches, music performances by members, including Obba Babatunde... a magnificant time was had by all! We look forward to continuing events from this great group of people!