SSU/Redwood Empire Jazz Festival

Marcus Shelby
Marcus Anthony Shelby is a composer, bassist, bandleader, and educator who currently lives in San Francisco, California. His work focuses on the history, present, and future of African American lives social movements and music education.

In 1990, Marcus Shelby received the Charles Mingus Scholarship to attend Cal Arts and study composition with James Newton and bass with Charlie Haden. Currently, Shelby is the Artistic Director of Healdsburg Jazz, an artist in residence with the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, and a past resident artist with the San Francisco Jazz Festival and the Healdsburg Jazz Festival. Shelby has composed several oratorios and suites including “Harriet Tubman”, “Beyond the Blues: A Prison Oratorio”, “Soul of the Movement: Meditations on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”, “Black Ball: The Negro Leagues and the Blues”, “Green and Blues”, and a children’s opera “Harriet’s Spirit” produced by Opera Parallel 2018. Shelby also composed the score and performed in Anna Deavere Smith’s Off-Broadway Play and HBO feature film “Notes from the Field” (2019). Shelby is also the voice of Ray Gardener in the 2020 Oscar-Winning Disney Pixar film “SOUL”. Shelby has also worked with a range of artists including Angela Y. Davis’ “Blues Legacies and Black Feminism” (2019), Joanna Haigood’s “Dying While Black and Brown” (2014), Margo Hall’s “Bebop Baby” (2013), and “Sonny’s Blues” (2008), the Oakland Ballet’s “Ella” The SF Girl Choir (2013), The Oakland Youth Chorus (2014), and many other productions over the past 23 years. Shelby has served on the San Francisco Arts Commission since 2013 and has worked with the Equal Justice Society for over 20 years. The Marcus Shelby Orchestra has released 5 CDs--“The Lights Suite”, “Port Chicago”, “Harriet Tubman”, “Soul of the Movement: Meditations on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”, and “Transitions”.

Jeff Jarvis
Jeff Jarvis has distinguished himself as a trumpeter, composer, jazz educator, and music publisher. He serves as Director of Jazz Studies at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach and frequently appears as a honors jazz band conductor, clinician and lecturer. Jeff is the Music Director Emeritus of the Central New York Jazz Orchestra and is a former Vice-President of the International Association For Jazz Education. Jeff is part-owner of Kendor Music, Inc., the first educational music publisher to provide jazz charts written especially for students.

His solo recordings as a jazz trumpeter and composer have placed high on national air play charts and have won him critical acclaim. Jeff’s early career as a studio trumpeter encompasses over 100 albums for such names as Lou Rawls, Melba Moore, The O’Jays, and many more. Live performance credits include Dizzy Gillespie, Louie Bellson, Joe Williams, Benny Golson, Jon Hendricks, Jimmy Heath, Joe Lovano, Henry Mancini, Slide Hampton, Kevin Mahogany, Grady Tate, Eddie Daniels, Rob McConnell, and Doc Severinsen. Jeff is frequently commissioned to compose music for school, military and professional musical groups, along with serving as a contributing editor for The Instrumentalist, and writing for other music trade journals such as Flute Talk, Band & Orchestra Product News, and Jazz Educators Journal. Jarvis has co-authored The Jazz Educators Handbook with Doug Beach, a jazz piano book with Matt Harris entitled The Chord Voicing Handbook, and with Mike Carubia, Effective Etudes For Jazz, the new standard in jazz performance/audition solos.

An S.E. Shires trumpet artist, Jeff has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Indonesia. He has been featured with the USAF Airmen of Note, Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Jazz Orchestra, US Army Jazz Ambassadors, Jazz Knights of the United States Military Academy Band at West Point, Riverside Jazz Orchestra, Oslo Big Band (Norway), US Army Blues, Frank Mantooth Jazz Orchestra, Denver Symphony Orchestra, USAF Shades of Blue, and more.

Michael Galisatus
Michael Galisatus is Professor of Music and Director of Bands at the College of San Mateo, directing both the college big bands and the wind ensemble. Prior to his appointment at the College of San Mateo, Mr. Galisatus produced award winning ensembles at various San Francisco Peninsula schools including Aragon, El Camino, and South San Francisco High Schools, and directed jazz ensembles at San Francisco State University and The College of Notre Dame.

Mr. Galisatus is in demand as a guest conductor and clinician throughout the western United States, including organizations such as the Monterey Jazz Festival, the Stanford Jazz Workshop, California Alliance for Jazz, and a host of others. In addition, Mr. Galisatus has presented workshops abroad, including Japan, China, Norway, Mexico, and Canada.

He has been the recipient of various teaching honors including the California Music Educators Association (CMEA) Jazz Educator of the year, The CMEA Bay Section Outstanding Jazz Educator Award, The Peninsula Arts Council Arts Educator of the Year, the Otter Distributors 2004 Jazz Educator Award for the state of California, the California PTA Honorary Service Award, and the CMEA Bay Section Gil Freitas Memorial Award for music education.

As a freelance trumpeter in the San Francisco Bay Area, Michael has studied under William Adam (Indiana University), John Coppola (Stan Kenton, Woody Herman), Joe Alessi (SFSU), and Chris Bogios (SF Symphony). Mr. Galisatus has recorded with Pete Escovedo, and Queen Ida, and has performed with a variety of artists including Tito Puente, Sheila E., Louis Bellson, Kenny Washington, Paula West, Natalie Cole, Johnny Mathis, Michael Feinstein, Mel Tormé, The Temptations, The Four Tops, The O’Jays, and many others.

Also featuring clinics and lunchtime concert by the Sonoma State Jazz Faculty

A black and white image of someone conducting an orchestra on stage