Ojai Pops Concert Series – Free community concert!

The Ojai Pops Concert Series will present the second of six FREE Community Concerts of this season on Sunday, September 15, 2024 at 3:30 PM Libbey Bowl.

The Ojai Pops Concert Series is sponsored by the City of Ojai and by Music 4 Kids, a California 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose goal is to provide low-cost music lessons, instruments, and free concerts.  Donations are greatly appreciated.  All donations will go to the Larry Weiss Scholarship Fund and will be given to students in need for private music lessons.

The concert will feature the Tuxedo Junction Jazz Band.  The band will consist of professional and semi-professional musicians joined by two young students.  The musicians are donating their time to raise money for Music 4 Kids.

Tuxedo Junction Jazz Band will feature; Thomas Butch McMorran on piano, Freda Ramey – vocals, Norbert Tan – Percussion, Corey Highberg – bass, Seth Andrey – guitar, David Marx – Trombone, Jenna Marx and Milo Miller – saxophone, and Scott Weiss – trumpet.  This concert will feature popular Dixieland and Jazz songs from the thirties, forties, and fifties.

About the musicians:   Thomas McMorran is a professional pianist who has performed with the Rippingtons, Tom Scott and the LA Express, Joe Pass, Natalie Cole, Bonnie Rait, Ricki Lee Jones, and is in the house band at The Grape.

Freda Ramey, vocalist.  Freda Ramey has been singing since a child and like so many singers, began by singing in church. From there, she joined theater projects and groups throughout grade school, high school and college.  She’s enjoyed working in a variety of bands and genres including rock, Motown, jazz, R and B and big band jazz. She’s worked with small, intimate combos as well as large, hard-hitting groups like The House Arrest Band where she currently serves as lead vocalist. Freda comes from a musical family. She’s the granddaughter of the late, great Eugene Ramey who’s found on numerous recordings of the 40s and 50s.

Seth Andrey is a contest winning guitarist, singer and dancer from Ventura, CA. He has performed with Barbara Morrison and John Tchicai. www.SethAndrey.com

David Marx is the principal trombonist in the Westlake Village Symphony and lead trombone in the Groovin Easy Big Band. He has been an active musician his entire adult life and played with many different groups in the community. David has studied with LA studio musicians Ira Nepus and Roy Main.

Norbert Tan, Drums. A jazz drummer and percussionist for over four decades, Norbert currently performs with the Ventura British Brass Band, Tuxedo Junction, and the Ojai Pops Orchestra. He has performed with acclaimed musicians Ellis Marsalis, Jon Hendricks, and Dianne Shuur. Norbert has played drums and percussion in musicals for regional and community theatres.  Norbert studied with Butch Miles, drummer for Count Basie and Lena Horne. As a student at UC Berkeley, he performed with UC Jazz Ensembles’ big bands and combos, and helped produce their annual Pacific Coast Collegiate Jazz Festival. Norbert was the first Managing Director for Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura. Norbert was selected as an Arts Management Fellow at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.

Corey Highberg, Bass.  Corey grew up in a house filled with instruments and surrounded by musicians.  Corey began playing upright and electric bass alongside mallet instruments and auxiliary percussion in 1991, studying music performance at Thousand Oaks High School and professionally for a short period after until 2002. He took a break from music and made a return in 2014, where he took on work as a jazz, Motown, bluegrass, folk, and contemporary artist with several Southern California groups. In 2018 he resumed his college education, earning associate degrees in music, history, humanities, behavioral science and liberal arts at Ventura College, followed by a bachelor’s degree of Letters and Science in Musicology in 2020 from The University of California, Santa Barbara and a Master’s Degree in music history at California State University, Long Beach in 2023. He currently teaches, writes, researches, composes, and performs music with multiple musicians and music groups. With a solid foundation in music theory and performance, Corey brings a wealth of experience to his teaching. His passion for sharing his knowledge shines through as he guides students in mastering guitar, bass, piano, and vocals.

Jenna Marx, Saxophone. Jenna is currently a junior at Westlake High School. She plays lead tenor sax in the school’s Studio Jazz Ensemble and tenor sax in the Colburn Jazz Workshop Big Band. Jenna has participated in the Bill Green Mentorship Program and JazzAmerica.

Milo Miller, our student Saxophone player, age 14. Milo has played the saxophone for 2 years and studying under Scott Weiss and Ruben Salinas.  He has performed with The Ojai Summer Band, Ojai Pops Orchestra, Diamond Canyon School and the Brass Quartet.  Milo currently attends Heritage Christian School.

Scott Weiss, Trumpet.  Scott is the conductor and founder of the Ojai Pops Orchestra.  Scott studied trumpet and conducting at UCSB.  Additionally, he has studied trumpet privately with some of LA’s top studio musicians. He has attended several conducting workshops including Conducting Guild workshop at the Cabrillo Festival with Marin Alsop of the Baltimore Symphony, the Los Angeles Film Conducting Intensive at Warner Brothers Studios, and the Maestro Series with the San Francisco Philharmonic.

He has performed with the Kona Brass, Chamber Orchestra of Kona, the Olliephonic Horns, Telarc blues recording artist Kenny Neal, and opened for Grammy winning vocalist Dianne Reeves.

He has conducted the Ventura County Concert Band, Ojai Summer Band, Chamber Orchestra of Kona, Nashua Chamber Orchestra, Santa Barbara Reading Orchestra at UCSB, and Ojai Pops Orchestra.

Upcoming concerts will feature the Los Padres Sound Horn Quartet and Razzberry Jam Band on September 22nd, the Ojai Pops Orchestra on October 20th, and the Tuxedo Junction Jazz Band on November 3rd, 2024.

Please refer to the website: www.ojaipops.com for additional information.