This performance is made possible in part by a generous grant from the Russell Hill Rogers Fund for the Arts.

KLRN is proud to present the KRTU to you.

South Texas Jazz Project, featuring the Adrian Ruiz Quintet, recorded live at the Carver Community Cultural Center on Kory Cook, and I'm the music director for Jazz 91.7 FM KRTU To you.

First of all, I just thank all of you for supporting jazz radio, for supporting live music and live jazz.

Tonight's guest is trumpeter, bandleader, composer, recording artist, educator.

Dr. Adrian Ruiz, and he's brought with him a quintet of musicians, two that all come from very different backgrounds in education and composition and performance.

And so we're going to get a chance to hear from the band and speak with the leader of the band.

But first, it's all about the music here at KRTU two and tonight for the South Texas Jazz Project.

So please put your hands together and give a warm welcome for the Adrian Ruiz Quintet, All right, you guys sound pretty good tonight.

All right.

Some of you might be familiar with that tune.

That is the theme song of the South Texas Jazz Project.

That's the Offset Strut, a tune written by Adrian.

And yes, it's also available on a recording called Premier, a collection of originals, a recording from 2017 that features this exact band with all these players and composition is coming from them as well.

Tell me a little bit about this ensemble and putting it all together, what the premiere ensemble is like to effectively refer to it as because these are all the gentlemen they recorded with me came to fruition probably around 2013.

So the group itself, The Aged or his quintet, was revived from the Ashes in 2012.

We had originally started this group with the premise of playing a bunch of tunes from the Blue Note era of the 1950s, late 1950s, or in 1960s, and then just decided, I think it's time to put some original material together in a lot of this material was incubated at the Elephant Room in Austin and other venues and lo and behold, Premiere came about in 2017.

What were some of your earliest experiences on On Stage and with some of the local musicians here in San Antonio?

I remember I was part of a really wonderful time in the in the 1990s where I was apprenticed by the great George Prado and the Regency Jazz Band.

They had a house gig over at Yeah, Give It up.

As far as I'm concerned, he's the patriarch of the jazz scene here in San Antonio, but he and the Regency Jazz Band, which consisted of the late great Joe Piscatella on piano, Chuck Glaive on drums, of course, George on bass, the late Grant Hegarty by was in there on guitar and Cecil Carter.

Those were my first life experiences.

Again, under the apprenticeship of George and the band, but in my own right, as far as being out there, I had just been a part of a bunch of different rhythm and blues groups before I actually was in a bona fide jazz group and stuff like that.

I didn't really start that until probably the late nineties, early 2000 and stuff like that.

But yeah, I mean, it all started with George's mentorship over Louisiana, over off-Broadway.

What I'm going to hear next.

I'd love to hear another tune.

All right.

I think we're going to go ahead and do a little mini set of two tunes.

So we're going to do a composition that was written by Sam Panky entitled Friends in the Right Places.

And then we're going to follow that with a Daniel Dufour composition entitled Birds.

All right.

Thank you you just heard the tune Birds that was composed by Daniel Defour and also Friends In the Right Place is the tune before that, composed by Sam Pankey.

Adrian Ruiz, could you introduce the band for us?

Absolutely.

To my right, my front line partner since the inception of this group, great composer in his own right, you'll hear his material shortly.

Soprano, tenor saxophone, originally from Brownsville, Texas, now resides in Austin, Texas.

Gil del Bosque.

Everybody give it up.

And also a great composer, great bandleader in his own right runs a wonderful spot up in Austin.

You need to check it out at some point soon.

Please put your hands together for Mr. Colin Shook on the piano.

Everybody is really an all around versatile cat.

He plays equally well in the electric bass, as you heard.

Very fantastic composer really demands to be a musician.

Mad about the world, touring the world with wonderful groups.

Please put your hands together for Mr. Sam Pankey on the acoustic bass.

Everybody.

You know, there just aren't enough adjectives to describe these wonderful musicians, but great educator as well composer as you just heard.

Please put your hands together for Mr. Daniel Dufour Wallace, Texas now lives in Austin, Texas.

Give it up, Daniel, before you know Buta Texas sorry Well, I'm ready to listen to some more music.

And I think everyone in the audience is as well.

So let's hear another tune.

We're going to turn to the pen of Colin Shook on this next to an entitled glas And then we're going to follow up with a lovely tune that I wrote for my wonderful wife.

Well, I'm very glad is in attendance this evening.

Every day could be Valentine's Day.

So this is a pre Valentine's situation.

It's just the tune is titled Pensamientos de Ti this performance is made possible in part by a generous grant from the Russell Hill Fund for the Arts.