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Clyde Adams
 Clyde Adams, born in 1976, is a new talent on the rise.
The young Texas native picked up drums at age eight and later attended HSPVA, the reknowned performing and visual arts high school in Houston, Texas. Upon his graduation he moved to Washington, DC in order to pursue his studies at Howard University.
Adams is a sought after drummer well beyond the Washington, DC and Houston scenes. He is known for his modern, forceful yet subtle, and always swinging approach to any style of music. He studied with jazz great Grady Tate, and has performed with: Bobby Lyle, Frank Foster, Benny Golson, Keter Betts, Winton Marsalis, Jimmie Heath, Charlie Young, David Craig, Antonio Parker, Stan Killian, Marshall Keys and The Amadis Dunkel Octet – to name a few.
Clyde's inspirations are Jesus Christ and his kids.
Shelley Carrol
 Shelley Carrol hails from a family of gospel singers and musicians in Houston. It is there that the ‘music bug' bit him at an early age and landed him in the famed Boys Choir of Houston.
After picking up the saxophone, he was able to study with the legendary Texas Tenor greats Arnett Cobb and Don Wilkerson. At the time he did not know how revered these gentlemen were around the globe – from Shelley's view, they simply lived in his neighborhood.
Shelley attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and was a standout in Houston's Summer Jazz Workshop Program. This is where he developed a true flair for the stage.
While attending the University of North Texas, Shelley earned a spot in the Grammy Nominated One O'clock Lab Band. There he recorded two critically acclaimed CDs in 1990 and 1991. During the same period, Shelley was invited to join the Duke Ellington Orchestra by trumpeter Barry Lee Hall. This would prove to be an enormous musical opportunity with worldwide exposure. Since joining the band, he has toured the U.S. and over 30 foreign countries. He has also recorded and performed with Maureen McGovern, Tony Bennet, Nancy Wilson, Joe Williams and a host of others.
Shelley evolved to record as a leader in 1997. He was able to feature members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra on his debut CD for Leaning House Records. His second CD, A Distant Star was released in the fall of 2001. The new disc features pianist Bernard Wright, bassist Curtis Lundy, and drummer Sebastian Whittaker. This sophomore effort is sure to get the critics and fans excited.
Shelley also feels a need to share his musical gift with today's youth. He currently teaches part-time at West Mesquite High School and gives clinics whenever he can. He even has plans to develop a Summer Jazz Workshop in Dallas. He says, "Music has to be shared to truly be enjoyed." Anyone who listens to his Tenor saxophone would have to agree.
Kenneth Gayle
 Hailed as one of the "Faces to Watch" and "…one of a new breed of opera singers…," Kenneth Gayle continues to accumulate accolades in a growing career in opera, oratorio, concert and stage.
National credits include performances with: Lyric Opera of Chicago, Ravinia Music Festival, Seattle Opera, Seattle Symphony, Grant Park Music Festival, Opera Omaha, Omaha Symphony and Opera Idaho.
Currently a resident of Houston, Texas, local credits include performances with the Mukuru: Arts for AIDS Series, Houston Ebony Opera Guild, Three Mo' Tenors, the premiers of the one-man musical journeys, "One Voice" and "One Heart…Revealed", and directing and co-starring in the inaugural "Cabaret for a Cure".
Other highlights of Mr. Gayle's 2008 season include: the North American premier of Tobias and the Angel with Opera Vivente in Baltimore, MD; Free to Sing at the Strathmore Music Center in Bethesda, MD; the North American orchestral premier of Kurt Weill's Walt Whitman songs (Artists in Exile) with the Post Classical Ensemble at the University of Maryland; and the Southwestern premier performances of "Fragments from Augustine the Saint" at Rothko Chapel in Houston.
Mr. Gayle is an alumnus of the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists and a cum laude graduate of the College of Creative Arts at West Virginia University. The Seattle native is also a past recipient of the Seattle Opera Guild scholarship for voice and opera theater and a former member of the Seattle Opera Young Artist Program.
Dr. Wayne Goins
 Dr. Wayne E. Goins, owner of Little Apple Records, was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, and is a versatile jazz guitarist who loves the West Coast cool style. He also plays blues, funk, reggae, and rock. He has recorded over twenty albums for Ichiban Records, and has toured extensively throughout Europe. His music has been performed on Broadway, with Pearle Cleagge in the play "Blues For an Alabama Sky," and his guitar work was used for August Wilson's hit Broadway play "Seven Guitars."
He is currently an Associate Professor and Director of Jazz at Kansas State University, where he conducts three big bands and teaches combos, jazz improvisation courses, jazz history class, private guitar and electric bass instruction. Goins completed his Ph.D. at the Florida State University. He has teaching experience in Boston, Chicago, and Atlanta, where he conducted jazz ensembles and taught guitar at Morehouse College, Emory University, and Kennesaw State University.
Dr. Goins is an active researcher and lecturer in the field of music education, and presents his works across the country and throughout the globe. He has written three books on jazz: "Emotional Response To Music: Pat Metheny's Secret Story," "The Jazz Band Director's Handbook: A Guide To Success," and "A Biography: Charlie Christian, Jazz Guitar's King of Swing." All three books are published by The Edwin Mellen Press.
Dr. Goins writes regular columns for Jazz Improv magazine, where he has written feature articles on Bobby Watson, Charlie Christian and Count Basie Orchestra guitarist Will Matthews.
"Neither scenery nor intricate lighting is required when a singing actor of his caliber takes the stage…" Chicago Sun Times.
Horace Grigsby
 Horace Grigsby is one of Houston's musical treasures – a great jazz singer in the tradition of Joe Williams, Billy Eckstine, and Nat "King" Cole.
Born in Houston, Horace sang in vocal groups in high school where he heard some of the great jazz bands of the late forties and early fifties before joining the Marine Corps. Stationed in Hawaii, Horace frequented the jazz spots, heard some of the great touring singers and began to sit in with the bands. After 12 years in the Marines, Horace relocated to Los Angeles in the early 1960's and began to make the scene as an up and coming jazz singer, singing with the Gerald Wilson Big Band among other groups.
Returning to Houston in the late 1960's, Horace continued to develop his great ballad style and swinging scat renditions alongside such Houston notables as Arnett Cobb, Jimmy Ford, Don Wilkerson and the Cedric Hayward Big Band. He met his frequent collaborator and accompanist Bob Henschen in the early 1970's playing in Houston trumpeter Tex Allen's United Nations Sextet. Horace and Bob have been playing great jazz together ever since, including recording Horace's debut CD "At Last" several years ago. Over the years, Horace has performed at jazz festivals in the United States and Europe, and has continued to be a legend on the Houston Jazz Scene.
Bob Henschen
 Bob Henschen is one of Houston's finest jazz pianists. He played in the famed University of North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band in the 1960's and toured with the Buddy Rich Big Band in the 1970's.
Returning to Houston, he has backed up some of the best names in jazz, including Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Wiliams, Anita O'Day and Eddie Harris, as well as Houston greats, Arnett Cobb, Don Wilkerson and Jimmy Ford. Since the early 1970's, he has worked and recorded with legendary jazz vocalist Horace Grigsby.
Bob's trio performs regularly at Houston's best jazz venues and has recently released a CD: "Bob Henschen Trio: Live at Cezanne." Bob also teaches in the jazz studies programs at Texas Southern University and Houston Community College.
Dr. Dan Karp
 Dr. Dan Karp has been playing piano professionally since 1963. He grew up in Boston and is a graduate of the Boston Latin School and Harvard College where he started out thinking he would major in music but switched to psychology and pre-med. Dr. Dan graduated from Duke Medical School and now serves as Professor at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center as well as the Clinical Translation Research Center in the unit specializing in the development of new cancer drugs.
Dr. Karp has been known for over a decade as an exemplary medical professional. Women's Magazine named him the Best Doctor for Lung Cancer. He is also one of the foremost oncologists in the State of Texas.
His mother was his first music teacher. At age 7 he first began playing with a local instructor. He built a lasting relationship with Mr. Phil Saltman, a Boston radio and television personality until the time of his passing at age 90. Dr. Dan has arranged music for Rhonda Liss, educator and singer known in the United States, Canada, and Europe. He started a jazz trio patterning themselves after the work of Bill Evans. He began a close relationship with the Bill & Bo Winiker Orchestra with whom he performed for more than 35 years. Since moving to Houston, he has been a featured performer at Cezanne, known as one of the top American jazz clubs, and at the 9th Annual Kemah Jazz festival.
He has released three CD's: Songs for My Father, his Houston debut live CD, Standard Fare (from Little Apple Records) with Dr. Wayne Goins at the Municipal Arts Center - Kansas State University at Manhattan, Kansas and My Days in the Sun, an Andrew Lloyd Webber tribute CD released by Divas World Productions.
Derrick Lewis
 Derrick Lewis has worked locally with Arnett Cobb & the Mob from 1979-1989 touring internationally with the group in '87 and '88. Derrick also worked locally behind various jazz artists during that time including Fathead Newman, Cleanhead Vinson, Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Larkin, George Cables, Pharoah Sanders, Jimmy Ford, I.H.Smalley, Jewel Brown, Mickey Moseley, and other greats.
Since the 1980's, Derrick has worked at the Great Caruso Dinner Theater, and at various restaurants and bars. He can currently be found performing at Sullivan's Steakhouse five nights a week.
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