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MARIA DE LA VEGA AND THE WAYWARD FIVE
Maria De la Vega and the Wayward Five are a jazz and blues quintet fronted by a dynamic female vocalist, specializing in blending unique flavors with the classic music of the 20’s, 30’s,40’s and 50’s. The Wayward Five plays an eclectic variety of styles ranging from Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Anita O’Day and Alberta Hunter. Their music appeals to a wide variety of palettes from the jazz and blues enthusiast to the casual listener. Their debut CD, Here’s to Life, was released in 2018.
Maria De la Vega is a jazz and blues singer who, in addition to several other music projects, has headed her own band Wayward Five for the last 9 years. She has a signature style that is both powerfully energetic and lyrical, reminiscent of legendary voices such as Billy Holiday, Alberta Hunter, Anita O’Day and others. Utilizing her extensive classical training, Maria beguiles and elates her audiences with performances that that are lush and playful. Her velvet voice and generous presence have been described as rich, dynamic and glowing. She has been a regular feature performer at such notable venues as Wolfgang Puck’s American Food and Wine Festival at Universal Studios, The Bar and Lounge at Hotel Bel Air, The California Club, The Jonathan Club, Spago Beverly Hills, The Charleston and many other cabarets, nightclubs and restaurants in the Los Angeles and Southern California region.
Jamieson Trotter | Piano
When Jamieson Trotter was four years old, he went into the den where his father had been practicing the piano, and began playing what his Dad had just finished working on. As the story goes, his father peeked into the room and just said, “I’m in trouble.” He started lessons for Jamieson the next day.
Jamieson Trotter attended school at California Institute of the Arts, learning from the great bass player Charlie Haden. He has also studied with Joe LaBarbera, Larry Koonse, and even the harmonically challenging Waddada Leo Smith (formerly of the Chicago Art Ensemble).
Jamieson’s hands have played small roles in a few movies. He was Val Kilmer’s piano hands in “The Salton Sea,” and Debra Winger’s coach for “Eulogy” with Ray Romano.
Jamieson has eclectic tastes in the kinds of music he enjoys playing. He has been a Temptation temporarily, composes and plays orchestral parts for Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66, and played with Mathew Morrison and Mark Salling of the television show, Glee. Jamieson is featured on piano on Salling’s upcoming follow up to his album “Pipe Dreams.” Recently, Jamieson began recording with Jon Farriss – drummer for INXS.
Carol Bach y Rita and Mark Winkler both have critically acclaimed jazz albums with Jamieson’s hands on keys. He is currently composing in a small room in Highland Park. Don’t disturb him.
Gabe Davis | Bass
Gabe Davis first picked up an instrument before he picked up a pencil. He began his long love of music at the age of four, starting on piano. At age ten he started playing the electric bass in order to form a rock band for his 5th grade talent show. As his musical tastes expanded, so did his repertoire of instruments and Gabe gravitated towards the upright bass. He has since toured extensively in the United States, Canada, and Europe with several different groups spanning various genres. To Gabe, music is a way of life and he loves to share his passion with anyone who wants to listen.
Mark San Filippo | Drums
Mark San Filippo was born & raised in Los Angeles & began playing the drums at the age of twelve. During high school he was a member of the Los Angeles Junior Philharmonic. He became more seriously involved in jazz while attending Pasadena City College where he earned an AA in music & was awarded the Jazz Ensembles Award for outstanding contribution.
He deepened his knowledge & experience of jazz performance while attending the Colburn School of Performing Arts. He transferred to UCLA & in 2000 he graduated Summa Cum Laude, earning a BA in Ethnomusicology, Jazz Studies Concentration. Mark has studied with an impressive array of master jazz musicians including drummers Billy Higgins & Sherman
Ferguson, cornetist Bobby Bradford, band leader Gerald Wilson & guitarists Kenny Burrell & Anthony Wilson. He has freelanced extensively, playing in acclaimed jazz, swing & latin bands all over the world. Out of an extensive list of musical engagements, Mark’s highlights include performing in the Duke Ellington Centennial Celebration at UCLA’s Royce Hall, along with guest conductor Lalo Schiffrin & jazz great Herbie Hancock on piano. He currently performs as a band leader, sideman & recording artist.
LIZZIE SIDER
Seen as a guest performer on The Queen Latifah Show, Hallmark Channel’s Home & Family and Entertainment Tonight, Lizzie Sider is an American singer/songwriter, recording artist, actress, and anti-bullying activist. Lizzie’s tracks, “Butterfly” and “I Love You That Much,” landed in the Top 40 on the Nashville charts, and one of her most recent releases, “Summer Love Song,” opened the 2016 Hallmark Channel Original Movie, “A Time To Dance,” starring Jennie Garth. Whether it’s performing with Peter Yarrow (Peter, Paul and Mary), Aaron Tippin or Jamie O’Neal, or playing character roles in live musical theater productions such as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Martha) or The Ballad of Cat Ballou (Cat), it seems that the stage is Lizzie’s second home.
However, Lizzie’s most important venture has been her anti-bullying advocacy. Bullied as a young girl for years, Lizzie would come home in tears, most of her school days. Through her parents’ love and her father’s words of “nobody has the power to ruin your day,” Lizzie grabbed ahold of her inner strength and let it lead her through the bullying. She became stronger because of it, and has made it a mission in her life to help others harness their own inner strength and beauty, and spread their wings, like a Butterfly.
Lizzie is Founder of Nobody Has The Power To Ruin Your Day, a non-profit organization for anti-bullying. Her current reach is over 7,000 schools worldwide (representing over 5 million students).
BEATA PATER
There are singers, and then there are musicians whose instrument is their voice. Beata Pater is clearly the latter. Whether interpreting lyrics with the emotional depth and lyrical expression of her personal “goddess” Sarah Vaughan and her beloved Shirley Horn; soaring on the fanciful flight trajectories of another profound influence, Betty Carter; or translating her studies on the violin into a fascinating musical narrative, Beata embodies creativity in its purest sense.
Immersed in music in the most organic sense since her earliest memories, Beata grew up in her native Poland with absolutely no sense of genre barriers or subjective classification. Yet she made the decision to pursue her personal path of expression through jazz.
“Why do I ‘sing’ Jazz? Because Jazz is Emotion. Emotions are most important in our lives. They make us and they truly lead us. Life makes no sense without Emotions.”
While there have been many attempts in recent years to define jazz within severely limiting boundaries, Beata embraces the profound art form in its true tradition of unfettered creativity best expressed by Duke Ellington who stated: “Jazz is Freedom. The Freedom to play something that has never been played before.”
A world traveler who after leaving Poland has lived in England and Japan, Beata moved to San Francisco in 1994, finding its open-minded ambiance to be ideal for her limitless creative process.
Embracing both the intimacy of classic jazz vocal artistry and the wide open terrain of adventurous expressiveness with equal commitment, Beata has blended both approaches with her stunning 3-album ‘color’ series, Black (2006), Blue (2011) and Red (2013). Drawing upon a rich and varied repertoire of classic standards, works by such heavyweights as Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Mongo Santamaria and the legendary Polish master Krzysztof Komeda, and her own remarkable compositions along with those of her frequent collaborator Mark Little, Beata has forged a unique place for herself in the forefront of jazz vocal artistry. On Blue, she began to utilize her wordless approach that occupies a special place somewhere between scat and a violin solo, moving deftly from one to the other, but most often blending the two into a concoction of aural delight.
“I know who I am and why I sing. I sing my soul…. without needless words.”
Beata has decided to explore both paths separately – one in stripped down intimacy; the other in a wilder, freely structured boundless adventure. The first foray into the former was 2014’s Golden Lady, a brilliant collection of Brazilian and American songs by a diverse array of songwriters like Tom Jobim, Stevie Wonder, Gordon Jenkins, Marcor Valle, Razao de Viver, Dimitri Tiomkin and Oscar Castro-Neves.
The latter is fully manifested in her stunning 2016 release Fire Dance, featuring a stellar septet and marvelous use of vocal overdubs – as many as 16 tracks on some pieces, ranging from bass to soprano – all sung by Beata in old-school style and woven intrinsically into the musical context. Alongside her highly innovative jazz style, there is a significant World Music influence, evoking the fiery exoticism of Middle Eastern, North African and Eastern European improvisational folk forms with some rich doses of R&B, producing an utterly unique fusion that simply defies category.
Beata’s extraordinary journey is one that would make a fascinating film. Surrounded by music throughout her life, from an age so young that she can’t even recall exactly how and when she discovered some of her earliest influences – Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Donny Hathaway, Jaco Pastorious, Herbie Hancock, Weather Report and so many others. But not only was she exposed to these artists at home, but also through the progressive, artistically open environment of her schooling in Poland, where her musical talents were recognized in kindergarten. As a member of the Wladyslaw Skoraczewski Choir at the Grand Theater in Warsaw she participated in operas by Bizet, Mussorgsky, Wager and Penderecki, an experience that had a tremendous effect upon the emerging young artist.
“There was something magical in all that, a different world, in which one wanted to be as long as possible. I recall that time as though some beautiful, fairytale dream.”
Her violin studies began at six – a love/hate relationship due to the rigidity of the process, but it also opened the door for her vocal career. Her teacher’s wife, a noted opera singer, recognized her strong vocal qualities and helped Beata begin her career as a vocalist, freeing her up to sing what she could not master on the violin.
Beata Pater – Biography
By the age of 14, she formed her own band FunLight, a genre-defying ensemble, which gained a good deal of notoriety in Poland and established her as a strong presence on the Polish scene. This was also where she began developing her wordless vocal style. Excursions into rock and punk rock, performing with the group Deuter and a variety of studio-based productions, further attuned her professional skills.
An exchange program brought her to England where she also taught, and that led to what was supposed to be a 6-month stay in Japan. Instead, it turned into a 10-year journey.
“I thought that Japan would be a good environment for experimentation and adventurous exploration. It was just the opposite, as very traditional jazz vocals were expected of me. But it really honed my talents in that area and I’m most grateful for the experience.”
Her decade in Japan was a whirlwind of non-stop activity, playing consistently in clubs with local and visiting foreign musicians, and teaching regularly at the Yamaha School of Music. It also gave her an opportunity to play with some visiting traditional jazz masters like Walter Bishop, Jr. (who was also the first musician she played with in New York City at Birdland after she moved to the States). And Japan is where she met another longtime musical collaborator, bassist Bootza Necak, a relationship that continues to this day. Her 1993 debut solo album, Session featured Necak and pianist Donny Schwekendiek, and five years later she and Necak recorded her second album, Duet.
Also heavily involved on the studio scene – singing for films and television commercials – Beata learned the production skills that have become so invaluable to her as a producer on her own albums. Still enormously popular in Japan, Beata has toured throughout the country five times since she left, most recently in 2017. Other recent major tours include a 2011 tour of the UK, and tours of the Czech Republic and Poland in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
A fully seasoned, mature and enormously versatile artist, Beata has been on a non-stop mission to explore every nuance of her diverse and expansive musical vision. Calling upon a wide-ranging team of exemplary musicians to achieve her goals, every touring and recording project of Beata’s is specially conceived and specifically assembled to deliver her powerful message as vocalist, violinist, composer, arranger and musical visionary. Her newest project, accompanied by a string octet, is being recorded in April of 2017.
With 30 years of vividly conceived and fiercely inventive artistry in hand, the real journey has just begun.
P R A I R I E P R I N C E
EXTRAORDINARY DRUMMER
WITH
THE TUBES & TODD RUNDGREN
AND
ACCOMPLISHED GRAPHIC ARTIST
During the course of 40+ years, while continuing to record, perform and tour the world with The Tubes (15 albums and world tours) Prairie Prince performed and recorded with many of his heroes and fellow artists alike, and fulfilled many desires to execute various drum techniques in a wide variety of musical styles.
In the early 70’s Prairie worked with legendary pianist, Nicky Hopkins, recording two albums with musicians such as George Harrison, Mick Taylor, Ron Wood, Ray Cooper and Klaus Voormann, among others. Prince started the band Journey with Neal Schon and Gregg Rollie shortly after and recorded the demos that got them their first contract. Prince opted not to join the band on a permanent basis for his dedication in The Tubes. After session work with Tommy Bolin, Brewer and Shipley and others in the 70’s, the 80s’ brought work with Chris Isaak and he played drums on his first four albums.
Prince was honored to record with Brian Eno and David Byrne on the innovative album “My Life in a Bush of Ghosts” in the early 80s. Prince worked extensively with Todd Rundgren recording 7 albums and touring the world with him several times. He played drums on XTC’s “Skylarking” LP in the mid-80s, then again on their 2 CDs “Apple-Venus Vol I” & “WaspStar Vol 2” which was released in 2000. Also, in the 80’s Prince recorded with Glen Frey, David Pack, three albums for Richard Marx and taped a Showtime Special with John Fogerty.
The 90’s brought live performances with Tom Waits. Prairie was the drummer on legendary “King of the Surf Guitar” Dick Dale’s 3 CDs. Then Prince became the full-time drummer for the re-formed “Jefferson Starship” featuring original members Paul Kantner, Marty Balin, Jack Casady and Papa John Creach. After 4 CDs and several world tours he bowed out as their full-time drummer in 1998 but continued to perform as their international gig drummer.
In 2006 Prince toured with The New Cars featuring Todd Rundgren as the lead singer, bassist Kasim Sulton, and original The Cars guitarist Elliot Easton and keyboardist Greg Hawkes.
Prince continues to perform and tour with The Tubes and Todd Rundgren.
VISUAL ART
Visual Art has always been a huge component In Prairie’s life. He’s painted murals, designed stage sets and have a thriving business creating custom finishes on drums, guitars, motorcycles and vehicles.
Early in his career he teamed up with Michael Cotten (former Tubes member) to create Cotten/Prince, an artistic design partnership. They combined their art expertise and worked with The Tubes choreographer Kenny Ortega (Dirty Dancing, High School Musical) to collaborate as the artistic team responsible for devising the production design and theatrical staging for The Tubes live shows and videos. They also designed the album covers and graphic design for the band.
They also came up with a style and air-brush technique which allowed us to design and paint some of the world’s largest murals.
One of their most famous murals was the “Flying Records” on the exterior of the A&M Records building in Hollywood, Ca. The mural’s demise was mourned by many in the music community, Jerry Moss, founder of A & M Records. The destruction of the mural was documented in a 2012 NPR interview.
Other iconic murals include “Crashing Waves” on San Francisco’s Cliff House and the interior of The Chemical Bank of New York at Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Their artistic vision and ability to produce innovative and artistic projects led to working for the world’s top live performers, high-end retailers and companies around the world.
Working with longtime collaborator Kenny Ortega they created set and stage design for some of the world’s biggest musical touring acts (Michael Jackson, Shania Twain, Bonnie Raitt, Gloria Estefan, Bette Midler, The Tubes and Todd Rundgren).
They also collaborated on the Closing Ceremonies of the 1996 Olympic Games and the Super Bowl XXX Half-Time Show, starring Diana Ross, Michael Jackson’s 1997 “History” tour and “This Is It.”
They also painted murals across the United States for companies including Macy’s (Federated Dept. Stores) and The Limited. Also painting murals and interiors for international clients in Spain, England, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Sweden and Japan. Other major mural commissions include grand scale interiors at the Ho-Chunk Casino and the Potawatomi Casino in Wisconsin.
Prince continues to design and paint murals and custom interiors in private residences across the country.
Jacqueline Boyd Born in Sydney Australia 1975
Relative of artist Author Boyd.
At age 12, Jacqui sold a painting at gallery to Environment Minister Tim Moore who displayed the painting in Parliament House Sydney Competed in dressage on a national level.
Won Rider of the Year twice. Turned down position to train the stallions at El-Cabano Blanco.
Formidable chess player, has won a match against the NSW state chess champion and played a famous grand master from Russia.
During her teen years, Jacqui committed to volunteer work including Riding for the Disabled, Animal Care, Teachers Aide to Special School Students, Neighbourhood Aid, and many other charitable organisations.
Jacqueline completed Animal Attendance Certificate, now Veterinary Technology (Started Science Degree).
Age 24, struck down in motor vehicle accident that claimed R foot. Joined forces with Anthony Roberts to successfully restricted the use of bull bar on cars/ 4x4 in Sydney. Jacqui then focused her volunteer efforts towards Animal Welfare because this is an area in crisis.
Introduced professional photography to animal welfare Won wlpa 2013 distinguished volunteer award Won wlpa 2014 Compassion Award (highest award). Photographs published in media, online, and the newspaper, Telegraph, Times, and Advocate.
Jacqui’s photographs published in a coffee table book by Pan MacMillian due for release December 2015
Gamer: Modern Warfare 3, currently ranks in the top .2% of 20 million players, Team Death match.
Has visited with spiritual healers over the past decade. Has experienced a poltergeist in her home.
Guest Has been in a coma for 9 days, and clinically died three times.
