Singer Showcase with Ty Stephens, Georgia Heers and Rosetta Jefferson

IJS & Greg Burrus present another great singer's showcase with three talented, swinging, soulful singers.

FEATURING DRUMMER BRANDON SANDERS - BASSIST JOHN MURRAY - PIANIST WILLIAM SCHWATZMAN

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Georgia Heers - Vocalist

Georgia Heers: a talented vocalist and composer making waves residing in NYC. She recently moved to New York City from Greenville, South Carolina, to pursue her graduate studies at The Juilliard School. She aims to dedicate her life to exploring the depths of music spanning across the African Diaspora. Georgia believes deeply in the healing components of music and artistic creation to cultivate community and healing.

For Georgia, music and artistic creation are not just passions, but a means of healing and cultivating community. Join her on this transformative musical adventure as she weaves together the power of music and the vibrant spirit of Harlem. You will be captivated by the soulful sounds of Georgia Heers.

Making her mark on the jazz scene, Georgia has enchanted audiences at iconic venues like Dizzy's - Jazz at Lincoln Center, 623 - Harlem's Speakeasy Jazz Club, and Chris Jazz Cafe in Philly. From Ornithology Jazz Club, Brooklyns' Sista's Place, Emmets Place, and Smalls Jazz Club to Mezzrow Jazz Club, she has left her audience in awe with her soulful performances. The future looks bright for this exceptional artist, and we can't wait to see where her musical journey takes her next. Stay tuned for her upcoming performances at the Singer Showcase at Clements Place.

Ty Stevens - Vocalist

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Ty Stephens is an award-winning singer/songwriter, entertainer and recording artist (Grand Prize Winner Jazzmobile/Anheuser-Busch Solo Jazz Vocalist Competition, NYC, 2006, and First Place Winner R&B/Blues Category of the International Songwriting Competition 2002 for "Somethin' Strange"), co-writer and original cast of "From My Hometown," co-writer/production, choreographer and star of the long-running "Shades Of Harlem" revue show, and co-writer/production, choreographer and starring in the new off-Broadway hit "On Kentucky Avenue" (Songbirds Unlimited Productions/StepForward Entertainment).

He has appeared on Broadway in the original productions of "Sophisticated Ladies" and "Marilyn, An American Fable". He has recorded with industry legends Harry Belafonte, Peggi Lee, dance music icon Dan Hartmann, disco pioneer Nile Rogers ("Beevis & Butthead"), master drummer Baba Olatunji, renowned trumpeter Chuck Mangione, singer Gwen McCrae, Def Jam premier artist Alyson Williams, among others.

Rosetta Jefferson - Vocalist

Rosetta Jefferson is a Brooklynite and a product of the New York City School system. Rosetta displayed a passion for singing as a child. She began her formal music training at the H. S. Of Music and Art and was a member of the All City H.S. Chorus and Concert Choir under the directorship of Dr. John Motley.

In her late teens, Rosetta got her first taste of the footlights when she performed at the Apollo Theatre’s Amateur Night. She won first place nine times. Rosetta continued her musical education at Brooklyn College and earned a BS In Music Performance and a MS in Multicultural Education from the College of Mount Saint Vincent. Rosetta is a retired Elementary School teacher of 29 years from The Clinton Hill School (P.S.20), in Brooklyn New York.

In retirement, Rosetta’s love of music and desire to sing was rekindled. Rosetta became a member of The Brooklyn Interdenominational Choir (BIC), a community choir under the directorship of Frank Haye who is also her vocal instructor. As a member of BIC, Rosetta has performed in choral festivals at Carnegie Hall, in China and Haiti with a small ensemble from BIC. Most recently, Rosetta has renewed her passion as a Jazz vocalist throughout New York City and the Tri State area.

Singer Celebration House Band

Brandon Sanders - Drums

Drummer Brandon Sandersis a successful, professional musician for nearly three decades. Brandon Sanders was born on February 20, 1971 in Kansas City, Kansas. When he was nearly two years old, his mother moved with him to Los Angeles. He spent his formative years in Compton, growing up in a musical household. His mom played the violin and his stepfather played the trombone. As far as drummer Brandon Sanders is concerned, everyone should have a grandmother who runs a jazz club. It was at the Casablanca, his grandmother’s place in Kansas City, that he was first exposed to the music that changed his life. During summer visits from his home in Los Angeles in the mid-1970s through the late ’80s, young Brandon not only encountered the music of such greats as Jimmy Smith, Grant Green, and Lou Donaldson, he also learned about their lives from the stories his grandma told him. The sounds of jazz were a constant presence in his home. During his teens, Brandon started compiling his own now-massive collection of jazz albums (which he numbers at more than 30,000!).

Another major influence in his life was a social worker he met at the Boys and Girls Club in his neighborhood. I became a social worker because I like working with kids and teenagers. So now, I’ve been doing that since the late ’90s.” I was mostly self-taught, but a Kansas City drummer named Todd Strait, who used to play with Marian McPartland, took me under his wing. He turned me on to people like Philly Joe Jones. He would tell me, "go listen to Art Blakey, listen to Max Roach.” After years of intense practice, he attained such a high level of proficiency that he was accepted at Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music, where he formed friendships and musical associations with future jazz greats including Warren Wolf, trumpeter Darren Barrett, and drummer Kendrick Scott.

In 2004, he moved to New York, where his friend the great drummer Lewis Nash invited him to stay with him in his Harlem apartment. Sanders, who now lives in the Bed-Stuy section of Brooklyn, began playing gigs with standout New Yorkers including pianist and organist Mike LeDonne and guitarist Peter Bernstein. He went on to accompany a long list of leading artists including Joe Lovano, Jeremy Pelt, Esperanza Spalding, Walter Smith III, and Billy Pierce while still “practicing, practicing, trying to develop my craft.” Are there ways that his work as a jazz musician and a social worker coincide? “Jazz has always had a kind of spiritual quality,” he says. “I’m a heart person. I have a big heart, and when I play for people, it’s not about me. I want to lift people up. https://brandonsandersmusic.com/

William Schwartzman

William Schwartzman is a graduate of the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and a jazz performance major at The Juilliard School. Having studied under musicians Taylor Eigsti, Daniel Rotem, and the late Mike Lang, William has had the privilege of performing at the Monterey Jazz Festival, Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival, and the Vail Jazz Party within the last year. Inspired by a wide range of pianists from Art Tatum to Brad Mehldau.

William’s study of jazz music has earned him early success, with multiple DownBeat Student Music Awards, the Grand Prize Winner in the Music Center’s Spotlight competition, and member of Gerald Clayton’s Next Generation Jazz Orchestra and Sean Jones’s NYO (National Youth Orchestra) Jazz ensemble. William performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City and toured Europe this summer with jazz master vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater and trumpet player Sean Jones.

John Murray Bass

John Murray, a jazz bass phenom at 17, has a constant appetite for music (and food): ‘He is extraordinary’ with a strong consumption for music.

“Anything that’s in front of me I’ll listen to, and I listen to a lot of music,” he replied. “That’s the main way I practice. Let me rephrase that: If I’m not practicing, I’m listening to music. I listen over and over again to the point where I can sing the whole tune. Once I can sing it, then I’ll try to learn it on my bass.

In 2018, Murray won Outstanding Soloist honors at the Monterey Jazz Festival’s Next Generation Festival. In 2019, he became the first bassist in the history of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s then-24-year-old Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival to win its Ella Fitzgerald Outstanding Soloist Award. Murray performed at Jazz at New York’s Lincoln Center with the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts Ellington Jazz Ensemble. He authoritatively soloed on two Ellington classics, “Happy Go Lucky Local” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing.”

His Ella Fitzgerald Outstanding Soloist Award victory was precedent-setting. In presenting the award, Pulitzer Prize-winning Jazz at Lincoln Center honcho Wynton Marsalis singled Murray out for his sophistication, originality, feeling, thematic development, impact and “overarching concept of form.”

Join us as we celebrate another Singer Celebration at Clements Place

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