Concert Schedule

François Moutin is a virtuosic bassist celebrated for his blazing technique, explosive energy, and deeply melodic sense of improvisation. Originally from Paris, he has played with many of the most respected figures in contemporary jazz and has led acclaimed projects on both sides of the Atlantic. His playing seamlessly blends precision, lyricism, swing, and rhythmic imagination, making him one of the most distinctive bass voices of his generation.

Ari Hoenig is one of the most innovative drummers of his time, known for his rhythmic mastery, inventive use of melody on the drum set, and highly expressive musical approach. Based in New York City, he has performed and recorded with leading artists across the jazz spectrum. His work stands out for its intensity, technical refinement, and ability to transform the drums into a true melodic and harmonic instrument.

In addition to leading her quartet, Nicole performed and recorded with the Birdland Big Band as the premier vocalist before taking off as a large ensemble leader of her own, co-producing the Dan Pugach Big Band and guesting for major big bands around the globe. She has headlined at Newport Jazz Festival, Melbourne International Jazz Festival, Caramoor, Saratoga Jazz Festival and Tanglewood, along with iconic NYC jazz clubs like Dizzy’s Club at Lincoln Center, Birdland, the Blue Note, the Carlyle, 54 Below and the late, great 55 Bar. She also has appeared as a featured soloist with the Savannah Philharmonic, Asheville Symphony, and Macon Pops as well as the Danish Radio Big Band. Her original song “Always” closed the 2025 Teyana Taylor album Escape Room (Def Jam Records).

Nicole is a featured artist and producer on her husband’s, renowned drummer, bandleader, and composer Dan Pugach, 2025 GRAMMY-winning album, Bianca Reimagined: Music for Paws and Persistence (Best Large Ensemble) for which they composed the GRAMMY-nominated song, “Little Fears” (Best Jazz Performance). Nicole is a vocalist on the GRAMMY-winning “Last Sunday in Plains: A Centennial Celebration” alongside Jon Batiste, Keb’ Mo’, and LeeAnn Rimes. In 2024, Broadway World honored Nicole with the “Best Big Band Show” Award. Nicole’s arrangement of Dolly Parton’s Jolene, co-written with Dan Pugach, was nominated for a 2019 GRAMMY, spring-boarding her career and making her a household name in the modern-day jazz landscape. In 2020, she was named in the top 40 under 40 for 2020 in Connecticut Magazine, and her weekly live stream during the Covid-19 crisis, “Virtual Piano Lounge,” was featured in Forbes Magazine. Her Live at Vic’s Las Vegas album was featured on NPR Toast of the Nation 2026 in an hour-long special.

Nicole has collaborated with an extensive list of luminaries, including Christian McBride, Tom Scott, Keyon Harrold, David Cook, Larry Klein, Gilad Hekselman, Veronica Swift, Benny Benack, Stephen Feifke, Cyrille Aimee, Antonio Sanchez, Javon Jackson, Nikki Giovanni, Dave Stryker, Omar Hakim,  Rachel Z, Helen Sung, Melanie, Morgan James, Darren Criss, Livingston Taylor, Thana Alexa, Rachel Eckroth, Don Braden and Bernard Purdie. She is a proud educator and a current vocal faculty member at NYU and the Litchfield Jazz Camp. In 2024, Post University awarded Nicole an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters.

An ardent activist with a decade-long track record of giving back, her release of How Love Begins coincided with a self-produced music festival and day of activism for SavetheSound.org. All proceeds of the GRAMMY-winning album Bianca Reimagined go to pitbull rescues Nicole and Dan have fostered through the last 15 years.

Two-time GRAMMY-nominated guitarist and composer Idan Morim has established himself as a distinctive voice in contemporary jazz. His 2026 GRAMMY nominations for Best Jazz Performance and Best Jazz Vocal Album recognize his sophisticated harmonic approach and the innate musical understanding he brings to collaborative settings.

Beginning his professional career at 16, Morim graduated from Tel Aviv’s Yigon Alon High School for Arts and Sciences before attending the Tel Aviv Conservatory. He earned a Provost scholarship to The New School’s prestigious School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, where he refined his voice under acclaimed faculty.

Now based in New York, Morim has built an extensive discography through international touring and recordings with major artists across multiple genres. As a sought-after sideman, he brings melodic sensibility and technical command to every collaboration while developing his voice as a bandleader. His debut album I.M. captures the intensity and spontaneity that drives his artistic vision, showcasing nine original compositions that blend sophisticated harmonic thinking with compelling melodic storytelling. Morim continues to tour internationally, expanding his solo career while exploring new musical territories as both composer and performer.

Sam Weber is a multi-GRAMMY-nominated acoustic and electric bassist, composer, arranger, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. Since his arrival in New York City in 2012, Sam has been in constant demand as a sideman, performing with an eclectic community of artists ranging from singer-songwriters to contemporary theater performers, dancers, rappers, crooners, avant-garde improvisers, and rising stars of the NYC jazz scene. Sam has played everywhere from top jazz clubs like The Blue Note and Lincoln Center to historic rock and folk venues like The Grand Ole Opry and The Bitter End, to national and international jazz and folk festivals, hotel lobbies, pharmacies, sidewalks, and subway platforms.

You can hear Sam’s playing on a wide range of recordings, including GRAMMY-winning and GRAMMY-nominated albums featuring artists like Sting, Lin Manuel-Miranda, Aaron Lazar, Nicole Zuraitis, Dan Pugach, Steven Blier, Tom Scott, Rachel Eckroth, and Keyon Harrold, among many others.

Originally a midwesterner, Sam is an alumnus of Western Michigan University, where he earned both a BA in Jazz Studies (2010) and an MA in Music (2011). Sam has also traveled throughout the US and internationally presenting clinics, lectures, and masterclasses, in addition to maintaining his own private studio.

Dan Pugach is a GRAMMY Award-winning drummer and composer, a 5X GRAMMY nominee, 2X ASCAP Foundation Jazz Composer Award winner, a recipient of the BMI Charlie Parker Composition Prize/Manny Albam Commission for Big Band and a participant at the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Residency Program at the Kennedy Center. He is a 2025 Chamber Music America “New Jazz Works” Grantee.

His latest album, Bianca Reimagined: Music for Paws and Persistence (2024), featuring Nicole Zuraitis, won the 2025 GRAMMY® Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. Additionally, he was the featured drummer on the 2024 GRAMMY Award-winning album How Love Begins, co-produced by Nicole Zuraitis and Christian McBride. His debut album, Dan Pugach Nonet – Plus One (2018), reached the top 20 in Jazz radio and earned a GRAMMY nomination for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocal for “Jolene” alongside Zuraitis.

The Dan Pugach nonet and big band perform regularly and have headlined at Dizzy’s, Deer Head Inn, Birdland, Blue Note, Smalls, the 55bar, and the Red Sea Jazz Festival.

Born in Tel Aviv, he served as the drummer for The Air Force Band while attending the Rimon School of Jazz. After studying percussion in Rio de Janeiro, he moved to the U.S. in 2006 to pursue a career in Jazz performance. Pugach holds a Bachelor of Music from Berklee College of Music (2008), where he studied with Terri Lynn Carrington and Joe Lovano, and a Master of Arts from the City College of New York (2011), where he studied with Mike Holober, Scott Reeves and John Patitucci.

David Weiss (trumpet), Jeremy Pelt (trumpet), and Azar Lawrence (tenor sax), from a more recent generation and the youngest members of the band, are experts in this forthright lingo, having gained experience performing with Art Blakey, Bobby Hutcherson, Freddie Hubbard, Charles Tolliver, Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Roy Haynes and Herbie Hancock.

Each member of the Cookers has spent time leading his own series of groups as well, and each has a keenly individual sound. But it’s the unmistakable power of teamwork that makes this music so commanding and resonates with a kind of depth and beauty that speaks of the seasoned track record of its principals (combined, the group has over 250 years of experience in the jazz world and has been a part of over 1,000 recordings). You can feel the collective weight of that experience in their CDs and especially in their live performances. Since this version of the band was solidified in 2007, the group has performed at venues around the world, including headlining the Newport Jazz Festival, New Orleans Jazz Fest, Monterey Jazz Festival, Playboy Jazz Festival, Vancouver Jazz Festival, Umbria Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Jazz a Vienne, London Jazz Festival, San Sebastian Jazz Festival, Detroit Jazz Festival, Chicago Jazz Festival, Portland Jazz Festival, San Jose Jazz Festival, The Jerusalem Jazz Festival, The Guinness Cork Jazz Festival, The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, Jazz in Marciac, The Burghausen Jazz Festival, Jazz Terrassa, The Healdsburg Jazz Festival, Jazz Viersen, Ronnie Scott’s, SF Jazz, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola and Yoshi’s.

After seventeen years together, The Cookers, who “embody the serious-as-death commitment that it took to thrive on the New York scene some four decades ago” (Andrew Gilbert, The Boston Globe), still maintain the incredibly high level of musicianship that has only increased with the latest offering of fresh, challenging, boundary-pushing music from these legendary, revered, veteran improvisers.

Underwriter for this concert is Peg & Bill Delaney

In 1985, Charlie Haden, the iconic jazz bassist, asked Watts to join with him in a new group he wanted to start, after hearing him play at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in LA. Watts first toured with Haden in Pat Metheny’s Special Quartet in Brazil and Japan, and Haden’s own Liberation Orchestra, then as a charter member of Quartet West, Haden’s storied group from 1985 until his death in 2014. Playing jazz nightly at such a high level with Haden inspired Ernie to move from production music in the studios to his true inner direction, live improvisation in jazz. By 2009 he was mostly on the road, working with Kurt Elling, Haden, Lee Ritenour, Don Grusin, Billy Cobham, Diane Schuur, other US and EU groups, and Asian groups in Singapore and Bangkok. He also toured (and still tours) with his own Ernie Watts Quartets in the US and the EU.

 In 2004 Watts and his wife Patricia started Flying Dolphin Records, for Ernie to have complete creative control of his music. The latest release Home Light, the label’s ninth, has the EU Ernie Watts Quartet with Christof Saenger (piano), Rudi Engel (bass) and Heinrich Koebberling (drums), together over 18 years. Flying Dolphin’s music includes Watts originals, pieces by band members, other musicians he admires, and some classic jazz tunes, which the band then makes their own. The label’s 2007 release, Analog Man, won the 2008 Independent Music Award for Best Jazz Album.

In 2014 Watts was awarded the prestigious Frankfurt Music Prize, for excellence in composition and performance, one of only six jazz players (such as Chick Corea) selected in 32 years of awards; the American Ambassador attended the ceremony.  In 2015 he was named Guest of Honor at the Telluride Jazz Festival in Colorado, playing on his own Ernie Watts Stage with his US Quartet. He was also, from 2014, in the Jazz Concert and panels for the Conference On World Affairs (CWA), held at University of Colorado Boulder until 2023, with music director, jazz professor, and great trumpeter Brad Goode.

Recently Ernie has also been featured in multi-genre bands that take his jazz saxophone into other traditions.  Dr. L. Subramaniam, the celebrated South Indian Classical violinist, and his traditional Indian group added Ernie as part of Global Fusion, and Corky Siegel’s ChamberBlues, with great blues player Siegel on harmonica, piano and vocals, plus a tabla player and a string quartet, now often includes the Watts saxophones.

The Pandemic slowed him down temporarily, as all performances were cancelled, but now that concerts are returning, Watts and his wife have another release for their label almost ready to go, a live album with his US Ernie Watts Quartet, from the magical venue The Baked Potato in LA, home of many classic jazz players over the years. The album title is Angel’s Flight, in honor of how music carries us all through every difficult time, due out in 2025.

Watts does master classes and student concerts at colleges and universities. He also performs as a feature artist with big bands such as the WDR Radio Band in Cologne Germany, with symphonies, and many other groups. His US Quartet features Marc Seales on piano, Bruce Lett on bass, and Bob Leatherbarrow on drums, all gifted players who Watts has known for years. He says of the group, “We now don’t just play music, we become music.”

His expansive, deeply lyrical and blues-drenched approach to modern jazz has made Seattle pianist Marc Seales a favorite sideman of touring luminaries for decades. In particular, long associations with Mark Murphy, Larry Coryell and Ernie Watts turned into albums, tours and lasting friendships. A leading figure in the Northwest jazz scene, Seales is not only a gifted pianist, but he is also a respected composer and educator. His post-bop style is reminiscent of Bill Evans and early Herbie Hancock. Seales has worked with luminaries such as Benny Carter, Bobby Hutcherson and Art Pepper. With his mentor, the late Don Lanphere, Seales toured the world, performing in England, Japan and at the famed North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands. Winner of numerous Earshot Jazz awards honoring Seattle-based musicians (Instrumentalist of the Year, Acoustic Jazz Group and Jazz Hall of Fame), Seales has also influenced much young talent. For 37 years, he was a Professor of Music at the University of Washington, serving as Chair of the Jazz Studies Program. He has recorded several albums as a leader, including his latest People and Places (2025 on Origin Records) which features Ernie Watts on saxophone throughout.

Bruce Lett’s acoustic bass playing is “distinguished by a resilient tone and buoyant rhythmic attitude,” writes the Los Angeles Times. The bassist has played with Nancy Wilson, Diane Schuur, Billy Cobham, Alphonse Mouzon and Gerry Mulligan among others. Lett was Jack Sheldon’s bassist for 20 years and also played for 8 years with the Bill Holman Big Band. His major influences include Ray Brown, Paul Chambers and Jaco Pastorius. He emerged out of the highly rated 1 O’clock Band at North Texas State University before landing in Los Angeles in 1985, where Lett established himself as one of the Southern California jazz scene’s most in-demand players. Lett has been a longtime faculty member at California State University at Long Beach, as their jazz bass instructor.

Bob Leatherbarrow has been a top drummer for studio and live performances ever since he moved to Los Angeles from Buffalo in 1978.  The drummer has played with a long list of great jazz artists, including the Ernie Watts Quartet (for over 25 years), Peggy Lee, Victor Feldman, Horace Silver, Doc Severinsen, John Klemmer, Rosemary Clooney and Natalie Cole. He has recorded in all genres with artists from Gordon Lightfoot to Bette Midler to Dolly Parton, from Placido Domingo to Henry Mancini to Leonard Cohen and Five for Fighting. He can be heard on film and television soundtracks including The Simpsons, Family Guy, King of the Hill, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Bruce Almighty and The Life Aquatic. Leatherbarrow is also a vibraphone player, having recorded with Stanley Clarke, Nelly Furtado and many others. He studied at the famed Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Ali has recorded and/or performed with jazz greats such as Red Rodney, Roy Haynes, Kenny Barron, Frank Wess, Hubert Laws, Stephane Grappelli, Harold Danko, Art Farmer, Mike Mainieri, Joe Beck, The Levin Brothers, and Gene Bertoncini, and a guest appearance with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. She has also performed with classical artists Julius Baker and Luciano Pavarotti (when she was principal flutist with the Monterey Bay Orchestra). Ali was musical director of the Hudson River Regional Jazz Festival (2001-’04), Jazz Chair for the National Flute Association, and founder of the NFA Jazz Flute Big Band. As an educator and author, Ryerson published the widely acclaimed “Jazz Flute Practice Method” and conducts master classes worldwide.

​Ali, a classically trained musician, studied with Harold Bennett (principal flutist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra) and John Wion (principal flutist with the New York City Opera Orchestra). She has served as Jazz Chair and Low Flutes Chair for the National Flute Association, was the founder of the NFA Jazz Flute Big Band, and is currently NFA Program Chair for the 2023 National Flute convention in Phoenix. As an educator, Ryerson published her widely acclaimed book, Jazz Flute Practice Method, conducts master classes worldwide, and teaches an online series for Lessonface. As a composer, Ryerson’s works are published by Presser, Edition Kossack, and ACR Music. Ms. Ryerson is a Sankyo Artist.

Pianist, composer, and arranger Larry Ham is a veteran New York keyboard player. Larry began his professional career in the Lionel Hampton Orchestra in the late 80s. He was pianist in the Illinois Jacquet Big Band 1990-95 and has worked extensively with countless other jazz legends, including the late Junior Cook and Dakota Staton. His recent New York appearances include Jazz at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Iridium, The Village Vanguard, Smalls, The Kitano Hotel, and Harlem’s historic Lenox Lounge.

Bassist Lou Pappas moved to the Hudson Valley in 1986 after accepting a position with the West Point Band. After retiring in 2006, he has kept a steady pace of performance with many groups in the New York area. He has performed with such jazz greats as Barney Kessel, Paquito D’Rivera, Ali Ryerson, Joe Lovano, Chris Flory, Dennis Mackrel, and Louis Bellson, along with vocalists Natalie Merchant and Veronica Nunn. He also is a regular member of many local orchestras, including the Hudson Valley Symphony, Taconic Opera Company, Woodstock Symphony Orchestra, and the symphonies of Albany, Ridgefield, and New Haven, CT.

Tom Melito has been a mainstay on the jazz scene for many years. His drumming has been heard behind such varied artists as Bucky Pizzarelli, Frank Wess, Harry Allen, “Sweets” Edison, Lew Soloff, Herb Ellis, Warren Vache, John Bunch, and Bill Watrous. Tom’s talents have been in demand internationally, having performed at most of the world’s largest jazz events including; the JVC, Montreal, and the Berne Jazz Festivals. His numerous television appearances include the CBS Early Show, Entertainment Tonight, and CNN World Beat. Melito has toured with noted singers Etta Jones, Kenny Rankin and Stacy Kent and continues to perform in NYC jazz clubs. Melito is an adjunct professor of music at Central Connecticut University, plays on Jerry Bergonzi’s CD play-along method, and is recording a series of jazz educational CDs for “Windplayer” magazine.