Jazz Vocalist, Songwriter, Composer, Lyricist, Trombonist, Educator

Bio

Bio

Jazz Vocalist/Songwriter/Lyricist/Trombonist GARY BROCKS has a wide background in Jazz, R&B, Rock, Latin, Haitian, and World Musics. He has performed or recorded with Roswell Rudd, Carla Bley, Michael Mantler, The Jazz Composers Orchestra, The Sam River's Jazz Orchestra, Peter Fish, Paul Butterfield, the O‘Jays, Ska Sha (Haitian Konpa), numerous latin bands, and has performed at the Newport, JVC and Kool Jazz Festivals, The New York Loft Jazz Festival, The World Festival Of Music & Dance (Nagasaki, Japan), and on National Public Radio, Jazz Radio WBGO, the WBAI Free Music Store, and arranged and produced music for TV commercials and cartoons. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Radio City Music Hall, Lincoln Center-Avery Fisher Hall, Jazz Vespers and Midtown Jazz at Saint Peters Church are among the venues at which Gary has performed in the New York metropolitan area. Corporate clients for whom Gary has provided musical services include ABC Television, CBS Television, CitiCorp, Colgate, Exxon, Merrill Lynch, Pepsico, Rockefeller Center Corporation, The US Open/World Championship Tennis (WCT), and Walt Disney Productions. As an educator, Gary has taught Jazz Improvisation, Music Theory for Singers, and Jazz History at the professional, university and high school levels, and taught at Hunter College High School, Queens College Preparatory Division, and The Brooklyn Conservatory Of Music. Gary has been the author and producer of Jazz history and performance concerts and workshops for The City University Of New York, Pace University, Cooperstown Public Schools, and The Board Of Education Of The City Of New York. Additionally, Gary has provided arts administrator services to individual artists including Mark Murphy, Kirk Nurock and Jeanie LoVetri. Gary has been the recipient of multiple grants from the New York State Council On The Arts Decentralization Program, and has been an artist in programs of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and was the founder/director of The Cayenne Jazz Band.

Influences

Jazz Singers, Scat Singing, Jazz Instrumentalists, Jazz Avant Garde, Third Stream, Post Bop, Bebop, Swing, Traditional Jazz, Bossa Nova, Salsa, Merengue, Konpa, World Musics, Classic Rock, Folk Rock, Western Classical Music:
Sheila Jordan, Mark Murphy, Jay Clayton, Marion Cowings, Theo Bleckman, Miles Griffith, Rhiannon, Nat King Cole, Carmen McRae, Billie Holiday, Jon Hendricks, Joe Williams, Roswell Rudd, Jay Jay Johnson, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Ornette Coleman, Pharoah Sanders, George Russell, Carla Bley, The Jazz Composers Orchestra, Kirk Nurock, Jack Teagarden, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, Ska Sha, Orchestra Yambu, Eddie Palmieri, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Astor Piazzolla, Bob Marley, The O'Jays, Smokey Robinson, The Four Tops, Arron Neville, Kenneth Gamble & Leon Huff, Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, The Beatles, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, The Byrds, Laura Nyro, Tim Buckley, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Sammy Cahn, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Richard Rogers, Oscar Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copeland, Howard Hanson, Joaquín Rodrigo, Villa-Lobos, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Debussy, Dvorak, Richard Strauss, Rimsky Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart.

Gary Brocks, The Triad, New York NY