Brad gregory

Brad Gregory attended the University of North Texas where he was a member of the One O’Clock Lab Band. Brad is also an alumnus of the Houston Jazz Orchestra. After working in New York City as a professional jazz musician for several years, Brad began a full-time career in the plastics industry and relocated his family to Kansas City. He performs regularly with the Boulevard Big Band, Jim Lower’s Big Band as well as with Molly Hammer’s Quintet and his own groups, KC Reeds and Rhythm and the Brad Gregory Sextet.

clint ashlock

Trumpeter/composer/bandleader/educator Clint Ashlock grew up in the Kansas City area. An in-demand musician across various genres, Clint is a dedicated and tireless contributor to the scene. Alongside his position as the Artistic Director and conductor of the esteemed Kansas City Jazz Orchestra, he has performed with such luminaries as Aretha Franklin, the Temptations, Nicholas Payton, and Natalie Cole, as well as being a mainstay on the local Kansas City performing circuit, most notably with his own groups, the quintet Forward, his ‘other’ big band, New Jazz Order (releasing that group’s first CD in 2012, featuring such musicians as Hermon Mehari, Mark Lowrey, and Bobby Watson), and the singer/songwriter/bandleader Jessica Paige.

As a student of jazz, Ashlock reflects the lineage of his hard bop idols such as Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, and Woody Shaw, and his big band writing is heavily influenced by Duke Ellington, Thad Jones, and his teachers Paul McKee, Frank Mantooth, and Kerry Strayer. Ashlock was recently featured as a soloist at the First Jazz Education Festival in Shanghai, China, and as the International Trumpet Guild Conference in Sydney, Australia, in addition to performing locally.

ernest melton

Ernest Melton was born in Goldsboro, NC. He relocated to Kansas City, MO (his mother’s hometown) at age 10. He picked up the saxophone that same year when he was enrolled in Longfellow Academy of the Arts. Bored with the classical curriculum of that institution. Ernest studied more contemporary genres of music and the guitar until the age of 14 when he joined a jazz program through the American Jazz Museum. By then he was playing mostly tenor saxophone. He joined his jazz band at Lincoln High School and many other programs around Kansas City. Naturally excelling, he left school at age 16 to practice on his own. 

  With kind neighbours and a very lenient mother, Ernest was allowed to practice his sax, listen to albums, and write compositions at any hour of the day. It was during this time he found his first major influences in jazz like Dexter Gordon, John Coltrane, Kenny Garrett and Pharoah Sanders. Pharoah’s polyphony (or growls) were like echoes of his father – a Primitive Baptist preacher and became a big part of his playing. An avid composer as well, Ernest studied with tutors in classical orchestration, big band arranging and Afro-Cuban drumming. He cites Charles Mingus, Igor Stravinsky, and Wayne Shorter as his favourite all around composers and still tries to implement their techniques in his music today       

   After being accepted into Berklee College of Music he decided not to go and started his career playing music in bands of every genre around Kansas City. While still in his early 20s Ernest has played all over the country and plans to travel abroad.