MUSICIANS
Rob Bethel, cello
Rob Bethel is a freelance cellist active in the Boston area and surrounding New England states. He owns Yesterday Service Sheet Music, Inc. which keeps him happily score mongering by day. He has fingers in many musical pies. Some of the tastiest of those are as the cellist for Vortex Other Dimension Ensemble and working with composers Steven Jobe and Forrest Larson.
Peter Bloom, flutes/saxophones
Peter H. Bloom has performed from Boston to Bangkok and appears on 30 CDs from labels including Leo Records, 9Winds, SONY Classical, Dorian, and Newport Classic. His career encompasses exploratory jazz, new and improvised music, jazz standards,blues, bebop, and diverse chamber music from the Renaissance to the 21stcentury. He has worked with Mark Harvey since 1969, has performed with the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra for over 30 years, appears on ten Aardvark CDs, and has performed with such noted Aardvark guest artists as Jaki Byard, Sheila Jordan, Geri Allen, Jay Clayton, Walter Thompson, and Raj Mehta. With Aardvark members, he recorded improvised music for the DVD series Treasures from the American Film Archives, which The New York Times called “one of the best sets of the year.” He has appeared with the Jazz Expansions Orchestra, Composers in Red Sneakers, Underground Composers, the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, and Todd Brunel’s Vortex Series for New and Improvised Music, among others. He has given premieres of works by Mark Harvey, Richard Cornell, Elizabeth Vercoe, Peter Aldins, Paul Brust, Marianela Maduro, Narong Prangcharoen, Len Detlor, Karl Henning, and others. Winner of the American Musicological Society’s Noah Greenberg award, he has given lectures/workshops/master classes on improvisation, new music, and historical performance across the U.S. and in Asia. Allaboutjazz.com praised his “hip, jazzy flute work,” while Jazz Improv hailed the "exquisite melody caressed lovingly by Peter Bloom's lead flute, …the improvisations growing organically out of the theme."
John Funkhouser has a degree in music theory from Cornell and a Masters in jazz piano, bass and composition from New England Conservatory. He currently teaches Bass, Ear Training, and Ensembles at Berklee. He has participated in an array of musical projects with creative musicians including Luciana Souza, Yoron Israel, Laszlo Gardony, Ron Savage, Tierney Sutton, Stan Strickland, Bob Gulotti, Rick Peckham, Phil Grenadier, Brad Hatfield, Tim Ray, Jeff Galindo, Pierre Hurel, teenage piano prodigy Matt Savage, (with whom he appeared on ABC’s 20/20 and NBC’s the Today Show), Patrice Williamson, John McNeil, Tim Miller, and the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra. Along with Ran Blake, Herb Pomeroy and John Harbison, he was a featured soloist with the MIT Wind Ensemble’s world premier of Mark Harvey’s, Beyond. He returned to his classical roots in 2003, joining the bass section of the New England Philharmonic under conductor Richard Pittman. As the leader of his band FunkHouse and as a sideman he has performed at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, Pittsburgh's Mellon Jazz Festival, Oklahoma City's Jazz In June (as leader and headliner), and many other music festivals. He has played in over 20 American cities and abroad from Paris to Shanghai. Among others he has recorded with James Merenda’s Masked Marvels, Pierre Hurel, Laura Allen, Philippe Cretien, Willie Myette, Thomas Luescher, Aardvark, Matt Savage, John Lockwood, and FunkHouse.
Mark Harvey, trumpet (see Music Director page)
Jay Keyser, trombone (see Poetry page)
Jerry Leake, percussion
Jerry Leake is an Associate Professor of Percussion at Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory. He leads the world-rock-fusion octet Cubist that performs compositions from his acclaimed 2010 debut CD. Jerry recently released his third Cubist CD, Prominence, where African songs and melodies are woven into contemporary designs. He is a founding member of the world-music ensemble Natraj and performs with Club d’Elf and the Agbekor Society. Jerry has written eight widely used texts on North and South Indian, West African, Latin American percussion, and rhythm theory. He is former president of the Massachusetts PAS Chapter, and was a presenter of his “Harmonic Time” method at a 2011 TEDx Seminar in Cambridge, MA.
Bill Lowe, bass trombone, tuba
Bill Lowe has worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Eartha Kitt, Clark Terry, Muhal Richard Abrams, Henry Threadgill, Cecil Taylor, George Russell, James ‘Jabbo’ Ware, Bill Barron, and the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra. He has co-led the Boston Jazz Repertory Orchestra, the Bill Lowe/Phillipe Cretian Quintet, and co-produced Boston’s annual John Coltrane Memorial Concert. He has lectured throughout the world from Cuba to Paris, mentored countless young musicians, and taught at Williams (Sterling Brown Visiting Professor), Columbia (Louis Armstrong Professor), Wesleyan, and Northeastern.
Tom Plsek, trombone (1948-2024)
Trombone explorer Tom Plsek stretched trombones and our concepts of them for years. His compositions included pieces for ensembles and solo trombone and often incorporated improvisation, technology, and performance art. He received his bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University and his Masters from University of Houston; both in music theory and performance. He was a member of the Mobius Artists Group and Chair Emeritus of the Brass Department at Berklee College of Music in Boston. He was a member of the Acoustical Society of America for which he gave several presentations mostly about the use of technology with brass instruments. He also taught acoustics for over 35 years at Berklee with an emphasis on the hearing process and hearing loss.
Chris Rakowski, accordion, saxophone
Chris can be heard on saxophone with the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra and Beantown Swing Orchestra. He graduated from MIT in 2002 with an aerospace degree and works in robotics. He has combined artistry and engineering while teaching in a Computational Art class at Harvard ExtensionSchool. He has been playing accordion as long as he can remember. Career highlights include playing along with the GI Joe theme song, winning the NJ ATA Virtuoso Division championship, and getting the whole family to sing old Polish tunes every time a holiday rolls around.
Phil Scarff, saxophones/woodwinds
“Phil Scarff… weaving magic through his saxophone with Raga Puriya… soul-stirring… sonorous… refreshing and delightful. He played… with great finesse and mesmerized the audience,” extols the Deccan Herald, Bengaluru, India. Saxophonist and composer Phil Scarff performs Indian classical music and jazz, and leads the acclaimed world-jazz ensemble, Natraj. Appearances include India's JazzYatra and Prayojana International Music Festival; PANAFEST, Ghana's major international festival; the Guelph Jazz Festival, Canada; the Boston Globe Jazz Festival; the Lake George Jazz Weekend; and the legendary Gayan Samaj Deval Club in Kolhapur, India. Phil is featured on over 25 internationally acclaimed CDs and DVDs, including four as leader of Natraj. Phil has shared the spotlight with icons of Indian classical music including Kadri Gopalnath, Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman, Trichy Sankaran, Chitravina Ravikiran, Ronu Majumdar, and Shashank; as well as African master drummers Godwin Agbeli and Abubakari Lunna. Phil performs and records with creative jazz ensembles including Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, Jazz Composers Alliance, and Sandy Prager. Phil has presented workshops and lectures on jazz and world music at institutions such as the New England Conservatory of Music,Tufts University, Rukmini Devi College of Fine Arts at Kalakshetra Foundation Chennai, India),Lawrence University, Bowdoin College, Dartmouth College, the Guelph Jazz Festival, the University of Rhode Island, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Harry Wellott, drums
Harry Wellott studied with celebrated percussion master Elvin Jones and often incorporates polyrhythmic aspects into his performance as well as influences from Latin and African sources. With the quartet Ribs, he toured throughout New England, performing improvisational scores for silent film classics such as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Spies, as well as Buster Keaton’s masterpiece, The General. He has performed with Jaki Byard, Jay Clayton, Jimmy Giuffre, and teenage piano prodigy Matt Savage, among others.
Dan Zupan, saxophones/woodwinds
Dan Zupan has been playing, performing, teaching and repairing woodwinds in Boston since the early ' 80's. As an original member of the Heavy Metal Horns and the Big Blues Meanies he has performed or recorded with a wide range of musicians including, Del Fuegos, James Montgomery, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, B.B. King, Delbert McClinton, Alex Chilton, Slide. He currently plays baritone and bass clarinet with the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra and has been a featured performer with Muse Stew performing music and poetry of local artists.
