(partly excerpted from https://www.last.fm/music/Scotty+Anderson/+wiki)

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Hailed by Guitar One magazine as one of “America’s 10 Best Unknown Guitarists,” SCOTTY ANDERSON has recorded three CDs to date. But the soon-to-be 70-year-old guitarist is known worldwide thanks to a number of YouTube interviews and videos of his playing at NAMM 
(National Association of Music Merchants) and other music shows. Members of a Facebook Telecaster group count him as one of the top players in the world. And legendary guitarist Chet Atkins said he "always learned something from Scotty" when he heard him.

 

Born in 1954, this Cincinnati based player grew up in a musical family. His early musical influences are Chet Atkins, Jimmy Bryant, Buddy Emmons and Leon Rhodes among others. In addition to recording, Scotty worked for Yamaha throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, performing at NAMM shows and clinics across the country. His concert performances have included playing for the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society in Paris, the Massachusetts Folk Festival in Boston, and opening up for the Doobie Brothers. In 2008 he released a DVD entitled Working Without a Net, available on his website scottyandersonguitar.com.

 

Like local guitar great Kenny Poole, Scotty has mostly stayed close to home, preferring to play his unique, virtuosic mix of what Danny Gatton called "Red-neck Jazz" in local bars and restaurants throughout the Tri-State area. On his debut for J Curve Roots and Blues, Triple Stop, the fingerstyle virtuoso blazed through a diverse set including 
tunes by Stan Kenton, Horace Silver, Fredering Steiner ("Theme from Perry Mason" -the TV show), and Django Rheinhardt.

 

"Since I loved Chet's style so much and my uncle played thumb style too, I always thought if I could fuse that with the freedom of jazz improvisation, that would be all that I would ever want to do, really," he told reporter Bill Milkowski.

 

Search on YouTube for "Scotty Anderson" and you will find mention of him on Arlen Roth's "Hot Licks" videos and an interview with YouTuber Levi Clay, as well as other treasures.  Scotty also draws tremendous joy from teaching guitar. His students have included numerous guitarists from across the country and, through the magic of teleconferencing, around the globe. (see scottyandersonguitar.com)

 

Discography
1985 Sleight Of Hand OOP
2001 Triple Stop
2003 Classic Scotty
2008 Working Without a Net DVD
 

SANDY SUSKIND was born in 1955 in Cincinnati Ohio. His first formal music training was piano lessons with Ilona Voorm who introduced him to the music of Bela Bartok. 
Sandy's parents had an extensive record collection and he recalls as a child hearing Erroll Garner, Duke Ellington, Prokofiev, Lead Belly and many others playing on the hi-fi. 

At age 7 his family moved to Portland, Oregon and there he began saxophone lessons with Eddy Flenner with whom he studied for 5 years. At this time he also learned to play guitar from his older brother Robin, an excellent guitarist.

 

Returning to Cincinnati with his family at age 14, Sandy attended Walnut Hills High School. After high school he attended CCM majoring in music theory and while there began learning to play flute. In 1975 he started playing with Ed Moss at Ed's Emanon Jazz Club. Moss demanded a lot from his musicians, and it was a period of great musical growth for Suskind. He would perform off and on with Ed for the next 35 years. 

 

Sandy has had long running gigs at Emanon, the Blue Wisp, Washington Platform, Schwartz's Point, the Netherland Plaza and the Hyatt.

 

Selected recordings that Sandy appears on:

• Ed Moss - Music for 7 Improvisatori 

• Tim Hagans - From the Neck Down 

• Dan Karlsberg - The Adventures of the Dan Karlsberg     Group and Mission from Mars 

• J - Curve Cincinnati Jazz Collection Vol 1, 2 and 3 

• Pamela Mallory and Jeff Hufnagle - True Colors

• Trio Pi - Eclypso 

 

Sandy feels very fortunate to have had such great teachers and to have played with so many great musicians. He feels that he has learned something from all of them. In addition to having played with many of Cincinnati's greatest over the years, Sandy continues to carry the flame of Cincinnati Jazz through his numerous Facebook posts in Cincinnati jazz groups, reminding jazz afficionados of famous past visits of jazz masters to the area clubs and also reminding us of local jazz musicians who have had worldwide impact on the jazz world.

HERB ARONOFF was born in Cincinnati and was raised in Richmond, Indiana. He began clarinet at age 8 and then later developed his love for the sax. Music became his life early, especially his love of jazz and he began playing professionally while still in his teen years in the 1950’s. 

 

Many good jazz musicians came out of Richmond, including Harold Jones, who became TonyBennetts’s drummer. Harold wrote a book entitled “The Singer’s Drummer” in which hementioned Herb. They were together in the Richmond High School Band program. Herb holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts and did graduate work at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, studying Saxophone, Clarinet, Flute and Oboe.

 

He became an accomplished doubler on those instruments and played in touring Broadway productions including West Side Story, Chicago, Hello Dolly and many others. As a freelance woodwind performer he played in a wide variety of Cincinnati ensembles including: The Blue Wisp Big Band, Carmon DeLeone Studio Big Band, Bill Walters Big Band, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Pops, Cincinnati Playhouse Orchestra, Cincinnati Children’s Theater Orchestra, Taft Theater Orchestra, Palace
Theatre Orchestra, Cincinnati Ballet Orchestra, Cincinnati Music Hall Shows, Aronoff Center shows Orchestra, the Bob Braun Show on WLWT, the Lookout House Show Band and the Beverly Hills Supper Club Show Band.

 

Herb was a charter member of the Blue Wisp Big Band, in which he played for 40 years . He appeared in all their recordings through his retirement in 2020. He also recorded with the Cincinnati Symphony Pops Orchestra for nearly 30 years.

 

Over the years Herb worked with such professionals as Red Skelton, Bob Hope, Liberace, Yul Brenner, Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley MacLaine, Carol Channing, Gladys Knight, Tony Orlando, Doc Severinsen, Dave Brubeck, Rosemary Clooney, Eddie Daniels, Plas Johnson, Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme, Mel Torme,Nelson Riddle, Linda Ronstadt and many others.

 

He recorded for the Decca, Telarc, Mopro and
Sea Breeze labels. In addition to his rigorous performing career, he was an outstanding educator, having taught at CCM as an adjunct professor and many years in the public schools in Massachusetts and Ohio. After his retirement from the schools, he and his wife established the Aronoff Studio which they operated until their retirement in 2020. His deep love for music, especially jazz, was his indelible gift to hundreds of students, many of whom went 
on to their own significant musical careers, because of his dedication and uncompromising artistic vision.

 

Herb passed away from complications of Parkinson’s Disease on Jan. 18, 2024.
 

(excerpted from an obituary by Janelle Gelfand, Cincinnati Enquirer)

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RALPH PENLAND was a modest virtuoso of the drums who loved to teach, but performing was his life. The prolific jazz drummer and Cincinnati native worked with a Who’s Who in the jazz world.

Penland died on March 13, 2014 from complications of a stroke at 61.

 

Despite the many superstars with whom he performed, from Frank Sinatra to Miles Davis, Mr. Penland remained quiet, humble and a devoted Jehovah’s Witness, his family said. He was an active performer, clinician and faculty member at Pasadena City College in California.

 

Penland graduated from Taft High School, where he studied drums and performed in many ensembles – including a program with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, which he recalled in an interview years later. As a teen, he played with some of the best of Cincinnati’s jazz community, which laid the foundation for a life in jazz. He left home at 18 to go to the New England Conservatory of Music. 

 

In Boston, while studying and teaching at the New England Conservatory, Penland began making a name for himself on the East Coast. At age 19, while gigging in New York, he met 
jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, who invited him to join his band. They recorded five albums together, including the groundbreaking “Keep Your Soul Together” and “High Energy.” During that time in the East, Miles Davis met the young drummer and invited him to come play music on the West Coast.

 

Penland settled in North Hollywood, and his artistry grew to include all genres. He worked and recorded with artists such as Herbie Hancock, Carlos Santana, Sarah Vaughn, Etta James, Dianne Reeves, The Coltrane Family, Stan Getz, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Joshua Redman, Chaka Khan and many others.

 

He worked with producer Quincy Jones on movie soundtracks and a variety of projects. Frank Sinatra recruited Penland for his year-long Diamond Jubilee World Tour in 1991. The same year, Penland toured with Latin-rock guitarist Santana. Two years later, he played drums in Hancock’s piano trio (1993-94), which he told the Los Angeles Times was one of the highlights of his life.

To find his own musical voice, Mr. Penland formed his own jazz ensemble called the Penland Polygon. “I like dealing with many different sides of music,” Mr. Penland told the Times in 1995. 

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“The bulk of my music is acoustic, straight-ahead jazz, but I also like fusion, funk, calypso. I’m always trying to expand.”
 

Dr. ISIDORE RUDNICK is an internationally recognized music educator, jazz trombonist, arts administrator, composer and arranger.  Dr. Rudnick has worked with students in elementary and secondary schools and colleges from the United States and Europe. He holds a Bachelors of Music Degree in Jazz Studies and a Masters of Music Degree in Composition from the University of North Texas and a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in 
Jazz Performance from the University of Miami (Florida).  

Dr. Rudnick has previously served as the Music Department Coordinator at the University of Maine at Augusta, Director of Instrumental Music at Yakima Valley Community College in Washington State and Artistic Director at the School for Creative and Performing Arts 
in Cincinnati.  

 

Dr. Rudnick is currently the Fine & Performing Arts Curriculum Manager for Cincinnati Public Schools and is the founder and director of the Cincinnati Jazz Academy.

An accomplished composer and arranger, Dr. Rudnick has written works for large and small jazz ensembles, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestra and wind band. 
His music has been performed at jazz festivals in the United States and Europe.  

 

As a performer and conductor, Dr. Rudnick has shared the stage with prominent American jazz artists including Jimmy Heath, Slide Hampton, Eddie Gomez and David “Fathead” Newman as well as European jazz artists including Janusz Muniak, Jarek Smietana, Joan Chamorro 
and Zbigniew Wegehaupt.  

 

As a trombonist with the Dallas Jazz Orchestra, he toured and recorded two albums including Live at Montreux and Romeo & Juliet which features some of his compositions and arrangements.  

 

As a prominent jazz educator, Dr. Rudnick has presented jazz pedagogy masterclasses and workshops to teachers at schools throughout the U.S. and in Europe.  

 

A passionate advocate of jazz education in schools, Dr. Rudnick founded the Cincinnati Jazz Academy in 2018. The jazz academy provides public school students and home school students in grades 4th-12th the opportunity to study, rehearse and perform jazz in a nurturing and dynamic environment where all barriers to participation have been removed. Students receive free jazz instruction, transportation and a musical instrument as well as a weekly private lesson.  Each year, in collaboration with Activities

 

Beyond the Classroom, the jazz academy hosts the CPS International Jazz Festival and invites student groups from around the world to perform.  Dr. Rudnick’s Jazz Academy ensembles and combos have performed at regional and national student jazz festivals.  Dr. Rudnick advises gifted students on careers in music and helps each student in 
the Jazz Academy reach their full musical potential.  Under Dr. Rudnick’s leadership over the past thirty , years, his students have performed throughout the United States 
and in England, Italy, Denmark, Poland, Bulgaria and Spain.  

 

Dr. Rudnick has brought internationally renowned music artists to Cincinnati to perform at the CPS International Jazz Festival, an event he founded in 2019.  

Dr. Rudnick is the recipient of national and regional awards including Distinguished Art Educator of Ohio, Down Beat Magazine Outstanding Performance Award with the 
University of Miami Studio Jazz Band as well as academic awards from two universities.  

REAGAN LISCH is a senior at Archbishop McNicholas High School.  He started to show serious interest in drumming and began taking lessons at the age of eight from Elmer Monk.  
He enjoyed learning rudiments and reading rock charts until he was introduced to jazz.  

 

As a fifth grader, Reagan was invited to play in the Guardian Angels’ Middle School Jazz Band by director Jan Diehl.  He thrived under Mr. Diehl’s direction and was exposed to auditions, live performances and an opportunity to record at a recording studio. This led to earning lead drummer in OMEA Jazz and Concert Ensembles for District 14.

 

Upon entering high school, Reagan wanted to continue to pursue playing jazz.  He began taking jazz drumming lessons with John Gardner.  Reagan was recommended to the Jazz at 
Dusk program during his freshman year.  Jazz at Dusk has provided him with hours of mentoring and master classes.  It has enabled him to further craft his jazz and improvisational skills through weekly gigs and other events totally over 300 hours of performances.  This experience helped build his skills to become lead drummer 
for the CCM Prep Youth Jazz Orchestra and Jazz Combo over the last three years.

 

Reagan is grateful to the Cincinnati Jazz Hall of Fame and the Jazz at Dusk program for all of the opportunities that were provided to him and looks forward to pursuing a major in Jazz Studies in college.