MAINSTREAM JAZZ / RHYTHM’N BLUES

William Sanders, (Kansas) tenor saxophone Hermon Mehari, (Kansas) trumpet Simon Blanc, (Lugano) guitar Patrick Robertson, (Lugano) piano Benjamin Leifer, (Kansas) bass Giordano Rizzato, (Lugano) drums

This group has been created specially for Blues to Bop and their music will be the result of a relatively brief artistic and creative meeting. The three young Americans are students at The UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance, Kansas City, Missouri, where Bobby Watson is director of Jazz Studies: Ben Leifer is planning to move to New York as a full-time bassist and composer; William Sanders is very active in Gospel music and has already appeared at the Montreux and North Sea Jazz Festivals; Hermon Mehari has been playing trumpet for seven years and hopes to become a full-time player. The three local students have just finished the third year of pre-professional studies at the Scuola di Musica Moderna here in Lugano. They have already played on the local jazz scene and given concerts in Northern Italy, including the prestigious Centre for Musical Production in the City of Bergamo. Here on home ground their “Blu Dream” group has been very successful. This group is sure to be one of the most interesting of the whole festival.