Darryl Rowe vocal | Adam Shulman piano | Doug Miller bass | Michael O'Neill saxophone and bandleader
From birth, Darryl Rowe was exposed to improvisational music. His career started with the Alabama State Jazz Choir and the De Anza College Jazz Vocal Program. He went on to win both the Pacific Coast and Fullerton Vocal Jazz awards for outstanding performance, and has been present in the San Francisco Bay area jazz scene for two decades, working with Woody Herman, Dexter Gordon, and Sergio Mendez.
Adam Shulman has been a staple of the San Francisco Jazz scene since he moved to the city in 2002. Before the move, Adam was a student at UC Santa Cruz where he received a degree in classical performance. While at UCSC he studied jazz piano with Smith Dobson. Adam can also be seen as a sideman with countless bay area musicians and vocalists such as, Marcus Shelby, Anton Schwartz, Andrew Speight, Erik Jekabson, Ed Reed, Mike Olmos, Michael O’Neill, Gary Brown, Patrick Wolff, John Wiitala, Vince Lateano, Faye Carol, Kellye Gray, Ian Carey, and Mike Zilber among many others. Adam has played as a sideman with internationally renowned artists Stefon Harris, Willie Jones III, Dayna Stephens, Miguel Zenon, Mark Murphy, Alan Harris, Luciana Souza, Paula West, Larry Coryell, Sean Jones, Grant Stewart, John Clayton, Bobby Hutcherson, Bria Skonberg and with the Glenn Miller Orchestra. In addition to his sideman work, Adam is a composer and arranger. He has released 4 albums of original music under his name. He has also done much of the arranging work for the jazz and cabaret singer Paula West.
Michael O’Neill, a San Diego native, began studying clarinet at an early age. His first mentor was his neighbor, the great jazz and studio drummer, John Guerin. After the usual involvement with school bands and orchestras, Michael did a stint in the Air Force Band. In college, while majoring in Biology, he minored in music studying composition and arranging as well as jazz performance. After a brief career in science, Michael returned to music full time, studying saxophone with the great Joe Henderson while playing in dance bands, salsa bands and doing local jazz gigs. During this time Michael became interested in composition and formed groups to perform his original material, a trend that is ongoing today. Besides jazz composition, Michael’s interests have taken him into orchestral and ethnic musical forms. In the 1980's he began writing music for documentaries and television for which he now has a long list of credits. Jazz performance residencies as leader include 13 years at the Ritz Carlton Half Moon bay, 7 years at Cetrella Half Moon Bay and 6 years at the Hotel Sofitel in Redwood Shores. Michael has performed and/or recorded with Idris Muhammad, Joe Locke, Michael Wolff, Giacomo Gates, Geoffrey Keezer, Maria Muldaur, Eddie Fisher, Rodney Jones, Kim Nalley, Jackie Ryan, Tony Lindsay, Margie Baker, Faye Carol, Brenda Boykin, Jeff Chambers, Rob Schneiderman, Mark Levine, Frank Jackson, and many others.The Michael O'Neill Quintet featuring the great vocalist, Kenny Washington, has headlined the Monterey Jazz Festival, San Jose Jazz Festival, the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival, SF Jazz, the Blue Note in Napa, Jazz at Pearl’s, Oakland and San Francisco Yoshi’s, Anna’s Jazz Island, the Jazz on the Hill Festival, the Oakland Art and Soul Festival, the San Jose Jazz Society Concert Series and many others.