Meet an Author

Hi my name is Rich Van Voorst and I'm a grad student at the University of South Florida as well. I just finished a Masters in Jazz Composition and I'm currently going back for a third year to complete a Masters in Saxophone Performance. As Matt said, the point of this blog is to hip people to all the goings on in the straight ahead jazz scene in the greater Tampa area. We will focus on straight ahead jazz and stay away from the smooth jazz scene for the most part. Not to say that there is anything wrong with smooth jazz, but this blog serves to offer a solution to the many comments that we hear like "I can't really find any other jazz except smooth jazz." We hope you all enjoy it and we look forward to seeing you at upcoming shows.

Meet an Author

Hello. My name is Matthew. You'll find me writing here from time to time about the Tampa Bay jazz scene. You may not think there's a lot going on here, but there is; you just have to know where to look.

If you've made it this far, you know exactly where to look.

As a point of introduction, I am a graduate student at the University of South Florida. I am studying jazz bass with Mark Neuenschwander and classical bass with Dee Moses. I am a graduate assistant for the Center for Jazz Composition and work part time for WUSF radio. I teach applied bass at Southeastern University. I do the majority of my writing at 104 weeks, my Grad School blog, and have a rarely-updated website here.

Look for me around the area (I live in Lakeland) and stop by often. Things will be moving quickly around here.