Gary Brocks Quartet

Bio:
Jazz Vocalist/Songwriter/Lyricist/Trombonist GARY BROCKS has a wide background in Jazz, R&B, Rock, Latin, Haitian, and World Musics. He has performed or recorded with Roswell Rudd, Carla Bley, Michael Mantler, The Jazz Composers Orchestra, The Sam River's Jazz Orchestra, Peter Fish, Paul Butterfield, the O‘Jays, Ska Sha, and has performed at the Newport, JVC and Kool Jazz Festivals, The New York Loft Jazz Festival, The World Festival Of Music & Dance (Nagasaki, Japan), and on National Public Radio, Jazz Radio WBGO, the WBAI Free Music Store, and arranged and produced music for TV commercials and cartoons. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Radio City Music Hall, Lincoln Center-Avery Fisher Hall, Jazz Vespers and Midtown Jazz at Saint Peters Church are among the venues at which Gary has performed in the New York metropolitan area. As an educator, Gary has taught Jazz Improvisation, Music Theory for Singers, and Jazz History at the professional, university and high school levels, and taught at Hunter College, Queens College, and The Brooklyn Conservatory Of Music. Gary has been the author and producer of Jazz history and performance concerts and workshops for The City University Of New York, Pace University, Cooperstown Public Schools, and The Board Of Education Of The City Of New York. Additionally, Gary has worked as an arts administrator and provided administrative services to individual artists including Mark Murphy, Kirk Nurock and Jeanie LoVetri. Corporate clients for whom Gary has provided musical services include ABC Television, CBS Television, CitiCorp, Colgate, Exxon, Merrill Lynch, Pepsico, Rockefeller Center Corporation, The US Open/World Championship Tennis (WCT), and Walt Disney Productions. Gary has been the recipient of a grant from the New York State Council On The Arts, and has been an artist in programs of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and was the founder/director of The Cayenne Jazz Band.

Influences:
Jazz Singers, Scat Singing, Jazz Instrumentalists, Jazz Avant Garde, Third Stream, Post Bop, Bebop, Swing, Traditional Jazz, Bossa Nova, Salsa, Merengue, Compa, World Musics, Classic Rock, Folk Rock, Western Classical Music.

Sheila Jordan, Mark Murphy, Jay Clayton, Marion Cowings, Jeanie LoVetri, Theo Bleckman, Miles Griffith, Nat King Cole, Carmen McRae, Billie Holiday, Jon Hendricks, Jimmy Scott, Blossom Dearie, Roswell Rudd, J.J. Johnson, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Max Roach, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Ornette Coleman, Pharoah Sanders, George Russell, Carla Bley, The Jazz Composers Orchestra, Bill Charlap, Kirk Nurock, Fred "Moe" Snyder, Curtis Filler, Slide Hampton, Bill Watrous, Lester Young, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, The Count Basie Orchestra, Louis Jordan, Jack Teagarden, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, Ska Sha, Orchestra Yambu, Eddie Palmieri, Frankie Ruiz, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Elis Regina, Astor Piazzolla, Bob Marley, Smokey Robinson, The Four Tops, The OJays, Arron Neville, The Beatles, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, The Byrds, Laura Nyro, Tim Buckley, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, James Taylor, Hank Williams, Debussy, Richard Strauss, Rimsky Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart.