Featured in The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune & LA Jazz Scene, Los Angeles-based jazz vocalist Rose Colella has also received mention in All About Jazz, JAZZIZ, NPR's A Blog Supreme & TimeOut NYC, describing her as “elegantly tipsy,” “pure seduction,” “cooly coquettish” & “beautiful and inviting." Her much-anticipated album, "Cocktail" was released to sold-out audiences and global acclaim, kicking off U.S. & Canada tour dates, with appearances in NYC, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto & more.
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Vocalist Max Wellman is enticing music lovers throughout the region. With a sound evoking the likes of Sinatra and Connick, Wellman’s recordings & performances promise that the Great American Songbook is alive & well for a new generation of listeners.
Wellman co-founded Noce, a state-of-the-art jazz club in the Western Gateway neighborhood of downtown Des Moines. Additionally, Wellman has appeared at some of the great clubs throughout the country, from Dizzy's Club Coca Cola at Lincoln Center to Andy's Jazz Club in Chicago to Dazzle in Denver & many in between. Performances alongside vocalist Rose Colella & pianist Annie Booth have been met with rave reviews.
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Nate Sparks is a composer/arranger/performer who grew up in Runnells, Iowa. Nate began playing the piano at age 7, trumpet at 11, and pursued jazz throughout his middle school and high school years. His acceptance into several national high school honor bands and music festivals led him to a post-secondary study of jazz at the Juilliard School, where he also began his career as a writer.
Since then he has been commissioned to write music for Lucky Chops, the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra, Bobby Sanabria and the Multiverse Big Band, the MSM Afro-Cuban Orchestra, Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, among many others. In 2018 he made arranging contributions to a Grammy Nominated album, West Side Story Reimagined, by Bobby Sanabria and the Multiverse Big Band. While he regularly takes commissions for freelance work, his main outlet as a writer is with his own band, the Nate Sparks Big Band, a New York/Des Moines-based 18-piece jazz orchestra. Playing exclusively his own compositions, arrangements, and transcriptions, the Nate Sparks Big Band performed regularly at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola in New York City in 2016-2019, and now takes root in Des Moines Iowa where he currently Resides.