Green Mountain Mambo CD Release Party.
Friday, February 24, 8PM
Vermont Jazz Center, Cotton Mill Hill, Brattleboro Vermont $8

The Dan DeWalt sextet, AKA Green Mountain Mambo is celebrating its release of "Who's a Patriot", a CD of original compositions by DeWalt and other band members. The music is gumbo of guaguanco, son, funk and jazz steeped in a Vermont sensibility.

For this occasion, GMM will function as a septet, with two top trumpet talents, Charlie Schneeweis and Steve Sonntag joining trombonists Clayton and Dan DeWalt for some horn heavy new material that will supplement the repertoire from the CD.

GMM members all play professionally throughout the New England area, each as members of several bands.

Clayton DeWalt, a freelance trombonist currently based in Boston, MA, is a rising star in the trombone world. He has played with a variety of talented artists, such as Toshiko Akiyoshi, Nancy Wilson, Cecil McBee, The New York Voices, the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, the Gene Krupa Orchestra, Bob Moses, Dave Samuels, Patrizio Buanne, The Temptations, and Regis Philbin, and can be heard on recordings with The New York Voices (MCG Jazz), The Three Rivers Jazz Orchestra (Sea Breeze Records), Catro, Azucar, as well as Green Mountain Mambo.

All the other GMM members live in southern Vermont.

Special guest Steve Sonntag plays extensively throughout the area and is an adjunct jazz and trumpet professor at Westfield State College in MA.

Charlie Schneewies is featured on trumpet and flugelhorn. He plays in several jazz ensembles and big bands, included the Creacion Latin Big Band based in Springfield MA. The rhythm section features Julian Gerstin, congas, Ben James, drums and Wim Auer, bass.

Julian Gerstin's percussive explorations have led him from the folk traditions of Ghana and Cuba to popular music from Nigeria to Brazil, as well as jazz styles from New Orleans brass bands to avant-garde experimentalism. He currently appears with the Caribbean/Mideastern jazz group As Yet Quintet, Afrocuban dance ensemble Grupo Palo Santo, cajun band Lil' Orphans (on washboard!), Brattleboro's Brass Band Project, and accompanies the Brattleboro Women's Chorus, River Singers, and others. Julian's scholarly interests took him to Martinique in 1993-95 and his writing on Martinican music traditions has appeared in several journals and books. He teaches music at Keene State College and the Vermont Jazz Center (where he also serves on the board), as well as community percussion classes at The Loft.

Initially a guitarist, Wim Auer took up the electric bass in 1974 to play with the regional jazz collective Antares with whom he toured the northeast through 1978. In 1979 the group relocated for a year to Cambridge, England. Returning to the states in 1980, he moved to southern Vermont and played with the popular Prime Rib Band, a Vermont based group that attained some notoriety in the northeast. During this period he met local musicians Dan DeWalt and Draa Hobbs with whom he has worked extensively.

Ben James grew up playing drums in Guilford, Vermont. Since moving on, Ben first lived in Boston and New York, then lived and played music in San Francisco before moving back to the north east. Ben now plays drums and percussion with various music groups in the area.

Composer and band leader Dan DeWalt plays piano and trombone. He works extensively throughout the Northeast, playing in jazz, latin and blues bands, as well as being active with musical theater work.