Seventh Avenu (final e optional) makes its third appearance at Bird & Beckett!

A North Bay-based septet, Seventh Avenu features vibist Dan Neville and the 4-horn arrangements of trumpeter/bassist Graham Bruce.

It’s a seven-piece jazz juggernaut, with a book of original music and great arrangements that’s thick as a brick!

Mad Duran, alto, soprano, flute
Dave Schrader, tenor, soprano
Ruth Ahlers, bari
Steve Weaver, trombone
Dan Neville, vibraphone
Graham Bruce, bass
Kendrick Frreeman, drums

Madaline Duran began playing sax at 12 and during high school was selected for study & performance with Oliver Nelson, John Lewis and Clark Terry. With a U of Miami degree shetoured the USA and Europe with the 21 piece BLUE SAINTS. Back in SF she joined George Cables, Hal Galper, Tee Carson, Jessica Williams and Larry Vukovich, Eddie Henderson,Tootie Heath, Eddie Moore, Eddie Marshall, Adam Nussbaum, James Moody. In the Apple she played the Village Gate and the Barry Harris Workshop. Mad taught at Stanford 10 years and toured Las Cicas de Nueva York. She played and arranged for the Kit McClure Big Band and the Montclair Women’s Band. She’s well-known for her collaborations & recordings with husdand Eddie Duran. Her flexibility covers Flute, soprano, alto and tenor on bebop, ballads, sambas and salsa. Stan Getz:”Mad is a lioness!” Herb Caen:”..just what jazz needs – soul, swing, and a breath of femininity.”

David Schrader studied jazz in San Francisco with saxophonist Joe Henderson and has played with trumpeters Eddie Henderson, Warren Gale, drummer Eddie Marshall and pianist Ed Kelley. In the classical realm he founded the San Francisco Saxophone Quartet in 1977, which specialized in transcribing and performing classical masterpieces, signed in 1990 to a recording contract with Angel Records/EMI. David has played with the San Francisco Symphony under conductors Michael Tilson Thomas, Herbert Blomstedt, Edo de Waart, with the San Francisco Opera, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players with Gunther Schuller conducting, Santa Rosa Symphony, Napa Valley Symphony, Livermore Symphony and others. He has been in bands that have won 6 NORBAYs (North Bay Music Awards) in the last 9 years and the 2008 Monterey Blues Festival Battle of the Bands winner (the Volker Strifler Band). He was the featured local saxophone player at the 2011 Russian River Jazz and Blues Festival. He’s also backed the Temptations, the Drifters, the Coasters, Joel Grey, and Frankie Ford.

Ruth Ahlers hails from the NY Tri-State Area. She’s performed with big bands including the Diva Jazz Orchestra and the New Xavier Cugat Orchestra, and was an adjunct woodwind instructor at Sacred Heart University. She also performed at the Yellowstone Jazz Festival in Cody, WY. Since moving to Sonoma County, she has performed with soul band Stax City, The Women of Brazil (with Fabiana Passoni, Téka Penteriche, Stephanie Ozer and Ami Molinelli,) big bands, saxophone quartets, and jazz groups from duos through septets. She has been a mentor in educational programs for the Healdsburg Jazz Festival and, as such, had the opportunity to perform with fellow faculty members including Babatunde Lea, Teodross Avery, Frank Martin, Gary Brown, Tiffany Austin, Bennett Friedman, Randy Vincent, Kendrick Freeman, Doug Liebinger, Carlitos Medrano, and Cliff Hugo. Among her current groups are Graham Bruce’s Seventh Avenu and Sambanoma, a Brazilian Jazz group.

Steve Weaver is a native of Missouri. He was a trombone performance major at Missouri University and has studied with Keith O’Quinn, Fred Carter, Bill Watrous, Frank Rehak, and Gary Drumn. He toured with George Matthews’ Great London Circus, Seagram Seven, and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. For thirty years he held the jazz trombone chair with San Francisco’s Rudy Castro big band and has played with Pete Escovedo, Bud E. Luv, the San Francisco 49ers band, the Bob Enos big band, the Ernie Shelton Dectet and the Neil Buckley Octet, in addition to many casuals with other artists.

Dan Neville is a vibraphonist, composer, jazz performer, jazz big band arranger and a full time student. His credentials include 7 seasons of SFJAZZ Center’s Monday Night Big Band, arranging for Adam Theis’ Realistik Orchestra, 3 outstanding musicianship awards from Reno, Chabot, and CSUEB jazz festivals, and winning 1st place in the 2017 Jazz Search West competition. Neville has studied jazz arranging and improvisation with Bennett Friedman at Santa Rosa JC, studied composition and piano with Rebeca Mauleon at City College of San Francisco, and is currently studying with Dan Zinn at the California Jazz Conservatory in Berkeley, CA, working towards a BA.

Graham Bruce is a California transplant from New England, studying in the 1960s at Rhode Island School of Design (illustration) and Berklee School of Music (composition). In Maine he arranged & played with the Don Doane (Woody, Maynard) big band. In San Francisco he joined Jules Broussard, Bishop Norman Williams, Herb Gibson, the Contemporary Jazz Orchestra in its inception, Duck Bailey’s octet EIGHT MISBEHAVIN’, and Noel Jewkes’ septet DR. LEGATO EXPRESS. He’s led various small groups as a trumpeter including BOPTEK, OCTAGON, PALINDROME and COOL REBIRTH, but now focuses on bass, writing and arranging for SEVENTH AVENU septet. Graham compiled the fakebook THINK OF ONE and, in limited publication, a book containing 305 original tunes (1968-2015). Dropping names, he remembers the words of : GEORGE COLEMAN “You’re an intelligent player”; JERRY BERGONZI “You have big ears”; CHET BAKER (at the time)”He plays like me”; MARK LEVINE “Thanks for your eagle eye and encyclopedic knowledge of the music”; THELONIUS MONK “You look like I did at your age. You’re crazy.”

Kendrick Freeman started his study at age 9 in Westchester New York with Steve Mulwitz, a drummer for a later incarnation of the Dorsey band, and after moving to San Francisco in 1974 continued with Scott Morris, Eddie Moore and George Marsh, with whom he received an NEA study grant in 1980. He received a B.A. in music from Lone Mountain College in 1978. He has always maintained a connection to the dance world, both as accompanist for classes and as a performer, with teachers from Ghana, Congo, Cuba and Haiti. His flexibility has connected him with a range of artists including Nashville dobro ace Rob Ickes, Pakistani singer Sukhawat Ali Khan and Blanche Brown’s Haitian dance company Group Petit La Kwa, where he was musical director from 1988-1993. Current work: a quintet with Ricardo Peixoto, Portsha Jefferson’s Haitian company Rara Tou Limen, and Fula Brothers, with Malian kamalengoni player Mamadou Sidibe and guitarist Walter Strauss. He was awarded a 2012 study grant from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts for his 7-years-and-counting apprenticeship with Haitian master drummer Daniel Brevil. “K” teaches privately, leads an ensemble at SSU and leads percussion workshops.