Sonny LaRosa and
America's Youngest Jazz Band
with boys and girls ages 7 to 13 keeping the
art of
big band swing and jazz alive for the past 32 years and claimed to be the
"Best Band of it's Kind in the World"
The
band has performed with: Nancy Wilson, Liz Wright, Chaka Khan, Dionne Warwick,
Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All -Stars, Randy Brecker, Slide Hampton, Jimmy Heath ,
Frank Wess, Joey
DeFrancesco, Frank Capp, Wayne Bergeron, Warren Yuening, Gordon Goodwin's Big
Phat Band, Don Menza,
Bucky Pizzarelli,
John Pizzarelli,
Jack Lesberg, Ruby Braff,
Jon-Eric Kellso,
Randy Sandke, Tommy Saunders, Bryan Shaw,
Joe Wilder, Harry Allen , Kenny Davern, Tommy Newsom, Ken Peplowski,
Bob Wilber, Bill Allred,
John Allred, Dan Barrett, Wycliff
Gordon, George Masso,
John Bunch,
Joe
Bushkin, Dick Hyman,
Johnny Varro, Howard Alden, Russell Malone, Phil Flanigan, Tony DeNicola, Jake
Hanna, Butch Miles, Ed Metz jr, Rebecca Kilgore, Skitch Henderson,
Warren Vache,
Buddy DeFranco, Vince
Giordano, Peter Appleyard, Stanley Kay, Sherrie Maricle, Duffy Jackson, Scott
Robinson, Joe Ascione, Clark Terry, Jerry Jerome, Flip Phillips, Jay Leonhart,
Urbie Green, Bob Haggart, Roberta Flack, Eddie Graham, Bob Draga, John Lamb,
Connie Haines, Jack Sheldon, Charlie Bertini, Stan Mark,
Herb Jeffries and
Stanley Clark
'What could they know about swinging'?
A renowned jazz critic, wandering into a concert in Clearwater, gets an earful from a youthful band and its 76-year-old trumpet playing leader.
By Lane DeGregory, ST. PETERSBURG TIMES - published October 10, 2002 The concert started like every other: Some kid with a saxophone honked a barely recognizable version of Mary Had a Little Lamb. A girl tried to blow Old MacDonald on her trumpet. The kids booed each other. The band director shook his head. Then he sprung up, arms raised. Bugle Call Rag filled the ballroom.- Just like it always does.
For more than two decades, Sonny LaRosa has been starting every show of America's Youngest Jazz Band that way. He has conducted more than 500 child musicians, none of them older than 12. That night, at the 2002 March of Jazz at the Sheraton Sand Key Resort in Clearwater, Sonny did everything the same way. Only everything was different. -
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