Island music fans can take advantage of two shows coming to Vashon this weekend.
Jazz trumpeter Thomas Marriott, a rising star who jazz great Maynard Ferguson called “a truly great jazz trumpet player,” will bring his quartet to Café Luna at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24.
Marriott is the recipient of five Golden Ear awards presented by Earshot Jazz and the winner of the 1999 Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Competition. He has toured the world with such luminaries as Maynard Ferguson, Rosemary Clooney and the Tito Puente Orchestra and appeared on more than 50 albums and recordings.
His latest album, “Crazy: The Music of Willie Nelson,” features material from the great country-western songwriter reworked for a modern jazz quintet. Jazz Times called the album “a kick in the pants.”
Marriott’s show at Café Luna will include original compositions as well as a collection of standards, pop songs and jazz classics. Tickets are $12 and will be available at the door.
On Saturday, Vashon Allied Arts will present David Lanz, a Grammy-nominated Seattle pianist, at 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 25, at Blue Heron Art Center.
Lanz’s compositions and piano playing helped shape the New Age music movement 20 years ago.
Lanz credits his mother’s influence for his long-standing music success. He says his growing-up years included the sounds of Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and Nat King Cole. By age 10, Lanz was composing his own boogie-woogie tunes.
From his young teens through his late 20s, Lanz performed with Northwest instrumental rock groups and even sang some of his own pop tunes. Deftly playing blues and jazz songs in no-name nightclubs, Lanz happened onto a different path in the early 1980s.
“A friend of mine was leading a seminar on the energy centers of the body and wanted music to illustrate the flow of energy through these areas sometimes referred to as chakras,” Lanz said. “I was also interested in the healing qualities of music and its effect on body and soul, so I made a little tape of piano music for the seminar and just about everyone who heard it, to my utter surprise, wanted a copy.”
Today, Lanz is the national spokesperson for the Ameri-
can Music Therapy Associa-tion.
Playing piano, Lanz says, is his greatest form of self-expression, especially in live performances where he blends his emotional music, audience involvement and his own charming comic take on what it’s like to be a SNAG (sensitive New Age guy).
His 2008 compact disc, “Painting the Sun,” will be available at the concert, along with previous recordings and songbooks. Tickets are available now at Blue Heron and Heron’s Nest for $16 and $18. Call 463-5131 to reserve.
