VINCENT ROBINSON has had a multifarious (some would same nefarious) and hectic career covering several pop genres before migrating to jazz. His history includes work with african pop and reggae and pop groups, from the Heat (worldbeat; Davis, CA) to Amandla Poets (South African flavored pop; Oakland, CA) to Resistance (roots reggae; SF, CA). Early forays in the jazz realm brought him into contact with Sam Peoples, Mandy Flowers (the latter most recently to be found at Cal Arts School in southern California) and other equally supportive and talented folks. Since then, he's played with many other fine local jazz musicians & groups, including Eleonor England, the Lime Rickey Quintet, and Simply Jazz.
For local jazz education, he can't say enough about Clark Suprynowicz's Berkeley Jazz Workshop, The JazzSchool in Berkeley, Blue Bear School of Music's jazz workshop, JazzCamp West, and the Community Music Center's jazz programs in San Francisco.
When asked about the group, he's tempted to speak about the elements of serendipity and good fortune that have brought the project together. He's tempted to speak about the gratitude and joy in playing great music with like-minded souls, and about transmitting that joy to audiences. He's always enjoyed bringing diverse elements together, both musically and socially, and is happy to discover this group succeeding as an expression of that, in terms of musicians and their backgrounds, and in terms of audiences and their experiences.
When pressed, however, he'll confess why the group's named after him with the observation: "whoever makes the most phone calls wins!"
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Last Updated: April 30, 1999 |
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http://members.aol.com/vrobinson/vrq/vincent.html |