George Sams – brass
Eric Mandat – clarinet
India Cooke – violin
Andre St. James – bass
Donald Robinson -drums
with special guest, poet Gerald Nicosia

George Sams has deep Bay Area connections (see the article linked and quoted below), but he now calls St. Louis home, where he was born and raised.  Eric Mandat is also coming out from St. Louis, while Andre St. James is down from Portland. We’re fortunate to have India Cooke and Donald Robinson still based here in the Bay Area. Poet Gerald Nicosia, a San Francisco resident, will read a few pieces with his old friends and associates in the band.

Catch up on George Sams’ career with this 1/29/17 article in St. Louis Magazine.

“When George Sams lived in the Bay Area, he helped found the San Francisco Jazz Society, as well as the ensembles Middle Passage and United Front. He chaired the music department at New College of California and jammed with Frank Oppenheimer, Robert’s little brother. But Sams’ roots are in St. Louis; it’s here, as a young trumpeter, that he came up with the poets and musicians of the Black Artists Group, a circle that included Hamiet Bluiettt, Shirley LaFlore, J.D. Parran, and the late Charles “Bobo” Shaw…”

Read more at the link above.

And listen to a 1984 performance in San Francisco by Middle Front (George Sams, trumpet; India Cooke, violin; Kash Killion, bass; Anthony Brown, drums) at this link. This is a legacy we are proud to bring into the present. Thank you for your support! You’re already being richly rewarded!