Mercer Island High School Jazz | School Of Jazz

Named for their practice room at Pacific Lutheran University, 322 brought 4 of their 5 band members to the knkx studios for an afternoon of cool tunes they wrote themselves. Drawing on their jazz education in standards to the wide variety of music available to college kids, the band clearly finds as much inspiration from modern rock 'n' soul as they do the Great American Songbook.

Seattle drummer, D’Vonne Lewis is probably the most frequently heard musicians on the knkx Studio Sessions.  He’s involved in a number of groups and projects, but we were lucky enough to get his Limited Edition band in for a performance.  Along with D’Vonne, you’ll hear Eric Verlinde (piano), Andy Coe (guitar), Farko Dusomov (bass), Cliff Colon (sax), and Jacques Willis (vibes).

The funk-jazz trio, McTuff did their first KPLU live studio session at 12:15 on an otherwise ordinary afternoon in 2015.  Before the performance, McTuff’s leader and organist, Joe Doria, asked if they should "tone things down" since it was early in the day.  We said they should follow their collective muse.  They did, and they rocked the house.  

A year later they came back and did it all over again — only different.  Here it is.

Joe Doria—organ

D’vonne Lewis—drums

Andy Coe—guitar

Puget Sound Community School is a private school with just 53 students.  So the school’s excellent jazz studies program only has a few participants.  So few, in fact, that the instructors often have to serve as performers, just to round things out.