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The Buffalo Ridge Jazz Band is a group of well-seasoned musicians whose specialty is Classic Traditional Jazz. The musical effect is at once entertaining, humorous and infectious. Founded in 1994 by veteran banjo artist and showman, Bob Adams, the band continues to gain an increasing number of fans on domestic and international stages.
The Tri-State region of the Greater Cincinnati Area is home base for this popular group. The band's performances for jazz clubs, on cruises, at park concerts and jazz festivals always draw rave reviews, and its recordings have received critical acclaim. The Buffalo Ridge Jazz Band is sure to provide listeners of all ages with a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
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Who's Who in the
Buffalo Ridge Jazz Band
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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. |
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Sally Lukasik (trumpet and back-up vocals)
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 M.A. in Music Theory at the University of Denver in 1990. As a graduate student in Denver, she studied classical accordion with the late virtuoso Robert Davine. 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. After her retirement from teaching in 2003, Sally began to follow her lifelong dream of working with animals. She is a self-employed professional pet stylist, avid horse lover and holistic animal healer. In addition to her accomplishments as a musical performer, she is the founder of Healing Presence Energy Therapies®. |
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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 wonderful 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." Joe continues to make regular appearances at numerous Cincinnati jazz venues, and has recorded for several local labels. He and Sally joined the Buffalo Ridge Jazz Band in 1996. Joe shares Sally's love for alternative holistic healing, and has recently become a Reiki Master. They enjoy performing middle eastern European music (with Sally on accordion,) and love to spend time together with their three rescued dogs-- Amos, Oskar and Hunny. Word has it that their cat Smokey is learning to play the washboard. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Email Us |
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Buffalo Ridge Jazz Band P.O. Box 33155 Cincinnati, OH 45233 |
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513-300-1030 513-467-1439 |
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Web Design by Pixels With Purpose |
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| Healing Presence Energy Therapies® |
| The American Rag |
| The Suncoast Dixieland Jazz Classic |
| The Blue Wisp Jazz Club |
| The Jazz Advocate |
| CHARLEY CAREY'S "STORY OF JAZZ" WMKV 89.3 FM, every Sunday at 4 p.m. Morden Grant Show, Fridays at 10 a.m. Friction with Dave Bartholomew, Thursdays at 10 p.m. WMKV 89.3 FM Cincinnati program guide |
| The International Washboard Festival |
| The Central Ohio Hot Jazz Society |
| Cincinnati Performing Arts |
| Tall Stacks Music, Arts and Heritage Festival |
| Cincinnati Underground Railroad Freedom Center |
| Pixels With Purpose Web Design |
