Behn Gillece Trio feat. Paul Bollenback

Behn Gillece Trio

featuring Paul Bollenback

Crab Trap Restaurant, 2 Broadway Ave, Somers Point
Get Your Tickets Today: All Event Ticket $100 $85 | Friday Ticket $50 $40

“Gillece is a skillful creator of tunes, harkening back to the original hard bop days and beyond, without sounding like mere imitations of that era’s classics.”
Bruce Lindsay, All About Jazz

After a decade on the New York jazz scene, vibraphonist Behn Gillece has built a reputation as a virtuosic instrumentalist and prolific composer. Walk of Fire, his third album as leader was just released on the Posi-Tone Label. The album showcases Gillece’s compositions with an exciting septet, featuring trumpeter Bruce Harris, tenor saxophonist Walt Weiskopf, and trombonist Michael Dease. It also features a stellar rhythm section with Adam Birnbaum on piano, Clovis Nicolas on bass, and Jason Tiemann on drums. His other two leader dates, Dare to Be and debut album Mindset, received excellent reviews in reputable jazz periodicals such as Downbeat and Jazziz. Both albums received extensive radio airplay and rose to the top 50 on the Jazzweek radio charts for several weeks.

Gillece has also been featured as a sideman on more than 30 other recordings. The most recent of these include albums by Walt Weiskopf, Michael Dease, Melody Gardot, and Ensemble Novo, a Philadelphia-based group dedicated to Brazilian repertoire.

Gillece continues to tirelessly play and compose for new projects based all over the tristate area. He has performed his music throughout the country at venues like Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Kimmel Center, Smalls Jazz Club, Smoke Jazz Club, Fat Cat, Yoshi’s, Chris’ Jazz Cafe, and many others. He has also appeared at festivals worldwide, including the North Sea, Montreux, Nice, Molde, Ghent, Montreal, and Toronto festivals.

In 2014 Gillece began endorsing Malletech and has been using instruments made by the company ever since.

Visit the website to purchase Gillece’s albums, find out information on teaching, and to see his updated performance schedule.

Paul Bollenback

Guitar master George Benson, a long-time supporter, has described Bollenback’s work as “. . . bona-fide playing, unambiguous, up-front and powerful,” calling him “a versatile dynamo on guitar. His approach to jazz and blues has a uniqueness unto itself . . ..”. That comment has special resonance in that Bollenback counts Benson high among his wide range of influences; these also include Carlos Santana, Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, John McLaughlin, Johnny Winter, and Jimi Hendrix (among guitarists), as well as such giants of improvisation and composition as pianists Herbie Hancock and Bill Evans, and saxophonists Wayne Shorter and John Coltrane.

Bollenback’s range and impressive discography as both sideman and leader speak for themselves. His two releases on Elephant Dreams Records “Brightness of Being” (ED4548) & “Invocation” (ED4550) remained on the USA Jazz Week charts for several months in 2007 and 2008 consecutively. “Invocation” was voted onto Downbeat’s Top 100 releases of 2008 and received wide critical acclaim in the international press garnering 4 and 5 star reviews in Jazz Times Magazine among others.

In 2011 Bollenback garnered a Grammy nomination for co-production on Joey DeFrancesco’s Never Can Say Goodbye (Hi Note), and also shares executive and co-producing credits with vocalist-composer Chris McNulty on her albums Dance Delicioso and her Whispers the Heart (Elefant Dreams). His international and national touring schedule currently include appearances with Joey DeFrancesco, Mike LeDonne, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Gary Bartz, and Shunzo Ohno, as well as many appearances with his own trio.

His latest recording on Mayimba Jazz Music “Portraits in Space and Time”, featuring all original music in a trio setting, was released to critical acclaim in 2014.