Gaea Schell is known as an instrumentalist among her peers for swinging every note, subtle phrasing and contemplative writing. Drummer Albert ‘Tootie’ Heath has said she “plays the heck out of the piano with them small hands.” An accomplished West Coast-based jazz musician also highly regarded as a flutist, singer and composer, she was recently compared by jazz aficionados to pianist Monty Alexander and flutist Holly Hofmann. She’s a native of Alberta, Canada, where she grew up playing music from an early age. Pursuit of a classical harp degree led to checking out Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans records in the school library, inspiring a move east and subsequent graduation from the jazz program at acclaimed McGill University in Montreal.

Sam Bevan, as both a bassist and an arranger/composer, was an important part of the San Francisco Bay jazz scene for 16 years until he moved in New York in 2016.  Born in Oakland and growing up in Salt Lake City, Sam had classical piano lessons from the age of four, sang and played piano professionally and earned a BA in French before dedicating himself to the bass and composing.  Greatly in demand after moving back to Northern California in 1999, Bevan’s versatility and creativity while performing jazz, funk, r&b, folk and Afro-Cuban music kept him constantly busy with stimulating projects.  He has repeated his success since moving to New York.

Pepe Jacobo is one of the Bay Area’s top Afro-Cuban drummers…and a first call percussionist.  He writes and performs original music, on both guitar and percussion, with many Bay Area bands.  He is a master of many genres of music reflected by the diversity of the groups he plays with including The Jorge Santana Band, Latin Funk band Mas Cabeza, Latin Jazz group CALIENTE 2000 and World Music group, Volcan.