Montecito Jazz Project

Specialties

Musical entertainment performance for events and establishments. We offer quality live jazz catered to the theme of the event and/​or the requests of the clients. We can configure as a jazz duo, trio, quartet or more and can include a vocalist when appropriate and desired.

History

Established in 2005.

The Montecito Jazz Project began as a collaboration between Drummer Tom Ray and Bass Player Tom Towle in 2005. Soon Saxophonist Jeff Regan joined in and added blistering solos and Guitarist Mark Coffin showed up and brought his own guitar stylings, providing perfect complementary accompaniment and tasty soloing. The quartet then went into the studio and made recordings for demos.

With every change of venue, the combo may feature a different set of gifted musicians, as Santa Barbara’s Jazz Underground has a good-​sized pool of talent. From time to time, other configurations of the group morph to form various sounds.

Meet the Manager

Tom T.

Manager

Tom took piano lessons at age 8 for a year and as a teen taught himself guitar.

In 1971 Tom enrolled at Santa Barbara City College and completed 2 years of music theory, string/​wind and percussion techniques, music physics, arranging, orchestration, and then later studied computer and electronic music and and sang in the choir.

In the early 80s Tom studied Mickey Baker Jazz guitar books and John Mehegan Piano Jazz Improvisation and learned from those books.

In 1986 he formed a jazz quartet, playing keyboards with Patrick Miller on bass, Brian Fanning on sax, drummer Wendell Lovett and vocalist Tana Bronk rounding out the Monterery Jazz Band, performed locally and made a local TV appearance.

In 2005, after attending an Adult Ed Jazz Combo Workshop, he co-​founded the Montecito Jazz Project band, playing bass guitar with drummer Tom Ray, guitarist Mark Coffin and saxophonist Jeff Regan. The group began performing locally, adding on keyboardists and soloists from the community.