PHOTO GALLERY: Hot Jazz for Cool Nights

Singer Sharon E. Scott doesn’t need a red dress to call the audience’s attention; she’s vivacious and loud, and it wasn’t just the volume she was singing. Between a phrase of perfectly-timed, raucous scats on Tuesday, Feb. 7, she yelled to Rodney Rojas, “You better play!”

Rojas, who had been easing in to a smooth solo, took the challenge. He abruptly crescendoed, and made that sax roar with as much sass as Scott had left off on. Their back-and-forth solos charged through the Durante Gallery at the Longboat Key Center for the Arts, a Division of Ringling College of Art, bounced off the back wall and sent tingles up spines to where many audience members’ heads began nodding to the music.

The band accompanying “Hot Jazz for Cool Nights” was composed of talented musicians: Rojas, Scott Blum on drums, Don Scaletta on keys and Mark Neuenschwander on stand-up bass. Between every three songs or so they would jam, reminding the audience they weren’t just playing in the background – as if they needed the reminder.

Among Scott’s covers, like Nat King Cole’s, “Orange Colored Sky” was sophisticated singer Robert Warren sailing through show tune, “Life is a Cabaret” before jumping into Lena Horne and Eric Clapton covers, showing much versatility in style. Then Ozanda Gray in his fancy red-leather shoes took the stage with his crooning tenor voice. He’d wail in falsetto and quickly sink into low notes, showing an impressive control over his vocal range as he scatted up, down, right, left and backwards.

Executive Director of the art center, Jane Buckman started off the night explaining why there were only two nights of jazz, so that there would be two “wow” performances. Based on the happy-feet tapping, arm waving, smiling and swaying of the audience, they surely nailed their mission.




IF YOU GO
‘Rat Pack’ Re-imagined – Frank, Dino and Sammy will come to the Longboat Key Center for the Arts, a Division of Ringling College of Art and Design in the form of John Rinell, Anthony Castellano Jr., Bruce Wallace, Scott Blum, Gary Listort, and Glenn Listort.
When: 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 13.
Where: Longboat Key Center for the Arts, a Division of Ringling College of Art and Design, 6860 Longboat Drive South
Cost: $20 in advance; $25 at the door
Info: 383-2345