• Genre :: Blues
• Listen :: Nighttime is the Right Time
• View :: Band Website | Eli Yamin's Blog | LaFrae Sci's Blog
• download :: HiRes Image

Eli Yamin Blues Band plays the blues to dispel the blues. This Rhythm Road alumni ensemble welcomes audiences of all ages into the varied and rich world of America’s primary musical art form—the blues. The band explores the healing power of blues music and its range from spiritual to classical, from bebop to folk. In some instances, the music is folksy, fiery, and brassy. At other times, it is quiet and restorative. Through performances and educational workshops, they explore the blues’ unique capacity to bring people together of all different backgrounds.

In addition to being spirited performers, members of the Eli Yamin Blues Band are also skilled educators. They have taught with Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts. This is the band’s second year touring with The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad. They toured in 2009 visiting Romania, Montenegro, Greece, and Albania.

Eli Yamin (piano and voice) is a jazz and blues pianist, vocalist, composer, educator, and Steinway artist. Yamin has performed at top concert halls and festivals in the United States, China, Mali, Japan, and Europe. He participated in the first White House Jazz Studio hosted by First Lady Michelle Obama and has been invited back on numerous occasions. He often collaborates with musicians, dancers, theatre artists and has served as cultural ambassador for the U.S. Department of State. He recently recorded Nora’s Ark, the jazz musical co-written with Clifford Carlson and features singers from the widely acclaimed Brooklyn Youth Chorus Academy. As a jazz educator, Yamin holds positions at Jazz at Lincoln Center as training specialist and head of instructions at the Middle School Jazz Academy and as Artistic Director of The Jazz Drama Program. Yamin holds a master’s degree in music education from Lehman College, City University of New York.

Bob Stewart (tuba) is a free lance concert artist, studio musician and educator. As a professional tuba player, he has recorded with groups led by Gil Evans, Frank Foster, Carla Bley, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, McCoy Tyner, Sam Rivers, Henry Threadgill, Arthur Blythe, Lester Bowie, Howard Johnson, Don Cherry, and Nicholas Payton. In addition, Stewart has taught in the public school system in Philadelphia and New York City for over 25 years. He has recently retired, after 10 years, as the Director of Jazz Studies at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts and is now Distinguished Lecturer at Lehman College Music Department and a faculty member of The Juilliard School. Stewart received his Bachelor of Music Education from the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts and his Master in Education at Lehman College Graduate School.

Kate McGarry (voice) is a GRAMMY® nominated vocalist, composer and arranger on the Palmetto Records label and has four critically acclaimed recordings. Hailing from Massachusetts, she has become an integral part of the New York City jazz scene for over a decade. Known as a leader in the field of contemporary jazz voice, she has recorded and toured nationally and internationally with the esteemed Fred Hersch, Kurt Elling and the Maria Schneider Orchestra. In August 2008, McGarry released her fourth CD, the GRAMMY® nominated If Less Is More, Nothing Is Everything. McGarry is a faculty member at Manhattan School of Music. She received her bachelor's degree in Afro-American Music and Jazz from the University Of Massachusetts in Amherst.

LaFrae Sci (drummer/composer) moved to New York City in 2000 to pursue her music career. She is a founding member of the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls and a faculty member of the Middle School Jazz Academy at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Sci has participated in countless workshops to foster jazz education. She has toured, recorded and worked with a myriad of jazz, blues, pop, rock, and hip-hop artists including Kelis, Il Divo, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Robert Lockwood Jr., Reuben Wilson, David "Fathead" Newman, Pinetop Perkins, Cyndi Lauper, Nancy Sinatra, Irene Cara and Bumblefoot. Sci also served as musical director for Sandra Bernhards' Everything Bad & Beautiful and as a cultural ambassador for the U.S. Department of State. Sci graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political theory and economics from Oberlin College in Ohio.