Buffalo Ridge Jazz Band
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Who's Who in the Buffalo Ridge Jazz Band
Bob Adams (leader, banjo, vocals)
Bob has a wealth of experience as a veteran showman and jazz band interlocutor. His mother was a vocalist in a territory band in upstate New York, and Bob often sang with his mom on stage at the Clover Club in Ithaca, New York in his early childhood. He developed his life-long passion for music by listening to hot jazz recordings throughout his youth and early adulthood. Bob spent several years as an educator before deciding to actively pursue music on a full-time basis. He has been featured with such groups as the Early Times Show Band, the Ragtimers (on Bourbon Street in New Orleans), the Pearly Band and Banjo Kings at Disney World and Your Father's Mustache Show Band. Bob also owned the famed Meier's Café in Cincinnati, home of his original Blue Chip Jazz Band. He created the Buffalo Ridge Jazz Band in 1994.
Sally Lukasik (trumpet)
Sally's musical journey began at the tender age of five, when a door-to-door salesman sold her parents an accordion. At age ten, she made her trumpet debut performing her own solo rendition of Louis Armstrong's hit recording of the Broadway show tune, Mame, at her elementary school. She is a graduate of her hometown Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and performed as an extra with the Cincinnati Symphony before earning her Master's degree in music theory at the University of Denver. Sally spent the better part of eighteen years as a music educator in several states, and was responsible for the debut performance of the Fruitvale Elementary Jazz Band of Hemet, CA. at the Desert Swing 'n Dixie Jazz Festival in Palm Springs in 1996. She has appeared at numerous jazz festivals and spent ten years with Denver's Hot Tomatoes Dance Orchestra. Now retired from teaching, Sally is working full-time as a professional pet groomer.
Joe Lukasik (clarinet)
Joe is well known to most of our audiences for his dazzling clarinet wizardry and good-humour, both on and off the stage. Originally from Brooklyn, this self-taught musician has been a featured performer with many prestigious jazz groups at festivals, clinics and concerts both nationally and internationally. Joe spent nine years performing with Horace Henderson (Fletcher's brother), and appeared at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival in 1991. A remarkable teacher, Joe continues to coach clarinetists and students of jazz at all levels of development, and he is the author of a handbook on the art of improvisation, entitled "Almost Making Music." In recent years, Joe has made regular appearances at Cincinnati's Blue Wisp Jazz Club and has recorded for several local labels. He and his wife Sally joined the Buffalo Ridge Jazz Band in 1996. They enjoy spending time together with their dog Amos, who is learning to play the washboard.
Mike Ward (tuba)
The newest member of the BRJB, Mike is a shining example of youthful exuberance, good looks and fine musicianship. During the day, he can be found teaching math and physics at Moeller High School, a prestigious parochial school in the Cincinnati area. Also a part-time math instructor at the University of Cincinnati, Mike spends his free time sailing, fishing, skiing and cooking. A serious student of traditional jazz, he has kept busy as a free-lance musician in the tri-state region for more than fourteen years. One of his passions is a desire to bring OKOM to younger students by way of clinics and concerts.
Gus Ross (drums)
Gus was born in New Orleans and immigrated to Cincinnati in 1956. He claims that twelve years of his petulant youth were spent playing French horn, but his College-Conservatory of Music matriculation revealed to him the way to his true rhythmic foundations. A nurseryman by day, Gus transforms into a swinging two-beat percussionist when the sun goes down or a jazz band materializes within earshot, laying down a beat that can't be ignored either by the band or innocent spectators. His influences go back to Baby Dodds, Joe Morello, Chauncy Morehouse and Gene Krupa. With extensive show experience, Gus performs with many local and regional bands, recently recording with Terry Waldo's Gutbucket Syncopators. An original member of the Blue Chip Jazz Band, Gus has been with the BRJB since it's inception in 1994.
Bob Butters (trombone)
Bob was smitten by Dorsey and Teagarden early on, and won the Tommy Dorsey trophy in the Look Magazine 1946 swing band contest at Carnegie Hall. At MIT, his "Dinner Music Society of Upper Beacon Street" played college functions and Boston's Savoy Café. As a de facto Savoy house band member, Bob backed numerous jazz legends, including Wild Bill Davison, Henry "Red" Allen, Max Kaminsky and Omer Simeon. He sat in for Al Jenkins with Doc Evans and subbed for J.C. Higginbotham and "Big Chief" Russell Moore. After moving to Ohio in 1951, Bob was soon working with Carl Halen's Gin Bottle 7, Eddie Bayard's Bourbon Street 5 (on and off the Delta Queen), Terry Waldo's Gutbucket Syncopators and Gene Mayl's Dixieland Rhythm Kings, recording with the first three groups. A member of the BRJB since 1996, Bob finds time to serve as president of the Central Ohio Hot Jazz Society in his hometown Columbus, OH.