Rick Davies

Originally from Albuquerque, NM, Rick Davies moved to New York City in the late 1970s and worked there as a trombonist and composer/arranger for more than twenty years before joining the faculty at SUNY Plattsburgh in 2000. Davies has primarily focused his creative efforts in the areas of salsa, Latin jazz, and Afro-Caribbean music.

On the salsa, Afro-Caribbean, and Latin jazz scenes, he has performed with many artists and groups (Tito Puente, Johnny Colon, Charlie Palmieri, Marc Anthony, Skah Shah, Ti Manno, Tabou Combo, Arrow, Rey Reyes, Johnny Ray, Manny Oquendo’s Libre, etc.) and recorded on over one hundred albums. For over a decade, he was the musical director of Wayne Gorbea’s Salsa Picante, performing, composing and arranging works for the group’s popular recordings. A long association with Jackie Byard and his Apollo Stompers is one highlight of Davies’ mainstream jazz credits. He is featured on Byard’s Phantasies II recording.

Davies remains very active as a performer. He has recorded with the rock group Blondie as well as with Michael Jackson and Wyclef Jean. Davies also did live appearances with Wyclef for President and Mrs. Clinton and at the Giants stadium Netaid concert. He filmed a VH1 Storytellers episode with Wyclef and the Refugee All-Stars. Davies has traveled extensively with the Big Apple Circus.

Rick Davies continues to appear regularly with Salsa Picante in venues around the world. Among the places he has appeared with the band are Tokyo, Sydney, Budapest, Amsterdam, Great Britain, and Colombia. Davies is the leader of the Latin jazz band Jazzismo and in 2006 produced his second album of original compositions called Siempre Salsa. Many of the selections on the CD have been international hits in among other places Italy, Japan, and Cali, Colombia. In March of 2007, a version of Jazzismo featuring Alex Stewart on saxophone and a number of local musicians performed at various venues in Oaxaca, Mexico.

As a scholar, Davies has written several monographs, chapters, and articles primarily about Afro-Cuban music and salsa. His book, Trompeta: Chappottín, Chocolate, and the Afro-Cuban Trumpet Style, was released in May 2003 by Scarecrow Press. He contributed a chapter on Alfredo “Chocolate” Armenteros to Music From Cuba (Praeger Press, 2001). Other articles he has written include “The Cuban Sonero: Beny Moré and Miguelito Cuní,” “Miguelito Valdés, the First Salsa Superstar,” “The Latin Jazz Continuum,” and “Americanizing the Eurocentric Music Curriculum”.

Davies received a Ph.D. from New York University in 1999 (his dissertation was on Cuban brass performance). He is professor of music and chair of the music department at SUNY Plattsburgh.  In 2009, Rick Davies received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Scholarship and Creative Activity.
 

Alex Stewart

A saxophonist and woodwind player, Alex Stewart has toured Europe and North America with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra (accompanying guest artists such as Dizzy Gillespie and Dee Dee Bridgewater) and has appeared at major jazz festivals in Nice, Montreal, Biarritz, Saratoga, New York (JVC) and the North Sea. He has performed on recordings by Bill Warfield, Dave Stryker, Anne Hampton Callaway and Peter Herborn that have featured Randy Brecker, Dave Liebman, Wynton Marsalis and many other renowned jazz musicians. He has also appeared on network television (Bravo, BBC, BET, Fox, etc.) with Manhattan Transfer, Nnenna Freelon and Lionel Hampton. In 1999, along with members of the Funk Filharmonik, he accompanied Ray Charles in Sweden. More recently, he performed in Mexico with the Latin Jazz group, Rick Davies and Jazzismo. Currently he directs the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival Big Band and performs with Jazzismo as well as other jazz groups.

Before joining UVM's music department in 1999, Dr. Stewart served as Director of Jazz Studies at Long Island University's C.W. Post Campus. He earned a Master of Music from Manhattan School of Music and received a Ph.D. in music with a concentration in ethnomusicology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His book, Making the Scene: Contemporary New York City Big Band Jazz was published in 2007 by University of California Press. He has also performed and written about Latin, popular and "world" music genres. His articles and entries appear in Popular Music, Ethnomusicology, Yearbook of Traditional Music, Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Annual Review of Jazz Studies, and Jazz Perspectives. During 2006-7, he was a Fulbright Scholar researching Afro-Mexican music and culture in Oaxaca, Mexico.
 

 Tom Cleary

As a pianist Tom Cleary has performed with artists including Lester Bowie, Bill Frisell, Mike Gordon, James Harvey, Ellen Powell, Clark Terry, Ray Vega, Ernie Watts, and Ike Willis. Currently he performs regularly with the Latin jazz group Rick Davies and Jazzismo and appears on their latest CD Siempre Salsa. His work as an arranger can be heard on Hey Sadie, the new album by Amber deLaurentis (now available on iTunes).

Tom has studied with teachers including Yusef Lateef, Archie Shepp, Barry Harris, and Harold Danko. As a composer he has been commissioned by groups including Social Band and the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts (for whom he composed New Seasons, Alter'd Sky, a song cycle for voices and jazz quartet). He teaches piano lessons in his private studio and in the music department at UVM, where he was also recently music director for The Threepenny Opera.