Biographies
Fotos by Melvin & Samantha Grier

Rolando Matias
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Latin Percussionist and Vocals
Leader, Composer, Founder & Business Manager

Closed to a decade ago, Rolando conceptualize The Afro-Rican Ensemble, with a vision and direction the Ensemble followed to national and international recognition. As an entertainer and musician, Rolando cannot be denied: a Multi-talented percussionist, Afro-Caribbean musicologist, Ethno-Foklorist and an accomplished harmonica player. Rolando has traveled the U.S. playing in a wide variety of groups, performing everything from the blues to Latin rock, and everything in between. A self-taught musician, Rolando, applied his formal training as an Architect into his musical education, seeking perfection, has sought out the greats during his travels in order to perfect his musical techniques as a percussionist, harmonica player and composer. Rolando started playing percussion at a young age in Cupey Alto, at the local "Bembes" of the neighborhood. "Bembe" is a gathering of "rumberos" jamming and improvising together. "We started with percussion grooves, pretty soon a trombone player joined in, a trumpeter and all of a sudden the place was kicking, it was a great scene." Rolando has completed his musical education in music and composition thru private education and formal studies at The Ohio State University, School of Music. He also advanced his studies as a Master Percussionist in Cuba under the tutelage of a number Cuba's finest master percussionists from Havana and Matanzas. These studies completed Rolando's formal training as Master Percussionist on drums, hand drumming and ethnic percussion as well as a Jazz composer. His performances range from the playful to the passionate, making this powerful Puerto Rican presence a pleasure worth watching. Rolando has performed or recorded with the likes of 2007 Latin Grammy winner Brian Lynch, multi-grammy winner David Sanchez, Chuchito Valdez, Benny Maupin, Patrice Rushen, Leon “Ndugu” Chadler, Azar Lawrence, Othello Molineaux, guitarist Mimmi Fox, percussionists: Bobby Matos, Bobby Sanabria, Bill Summers and Lenny Castro, bluesmen: Eddie "The Chief" Clearwater, Kenny Neal, Duke Robillard, Australian Dave Hole, Debbie Davies and Howard Scott and the World Band, the late great pianist from Cleveland Roberto Ocasio, Brazilian reedman Carlos Malta, the B-3 madman Ron Levy, Pam Williams, trumpeters: Pharez Whitted, Derek Gardner and Latin Grammy nominee Ray Vega, Los Hombres Calientes, guitarist Jim Savitt, Hector Martignon, Greg Abate, Andy Gonzalez, Adela Dalto, Kim Pencyl, The Navigators , the master of the spoken word the legenday Umar Hassan from The Last Poets among others.

Rolando Matias is endorsed by:

:
Meinl Percussion instruments exclusively.

Congas-Meinl's Wood Craft,Marathon or Floatunes Congas, Bongos-Meinl's Wood Craft, Meinl "Cajon", Timbales-Amadito Valdez Signature Series & Luis Conte Signature Series and Meinl's RealPlayer cowbells, Meinl's Caliente 18" Ride/Crash, Floatune Bata Drums (Okonkolo, Itotele & Iya) and Meinl's hand percussion (claves, guiros, maracas etc.)

Dean Marcellana
Manila, Philippine Islands

Piano, Composer

Pianist/Keyboardist, Dean Marcellana holds degrees from the University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music and the Boston Conservatory. He has performed as featured soloist with the Boston Conservatory Wind Ensemble performing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, the University of the Pacific Symphony performing Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major and the Tulare/Visalia Symphony performing Bach’s Concerto No. 1 in d minor. In February ‘2000, he and his wife, Jennifer Marcellana, traveled to Lima, Peru to perform as guest soloists with La Orquesta Juvenil de Musica Nueva. A versatile musician, Mr. Marcellana leads his own Latin/Jazz group which has performed at such venues as the House of Blues (Cambridge, MA), the Hi-Hat Jazz Club (Providence, RI), the Limbo Jazz Club (Boston, MA), the Providence Black Repertory Theatre (Providence, RI), the Columbus Music Hall (Columbus, OH), the Boston Downtown Crossing Jazz in July Concert Series (Boston, MA), The Old South Meeting House (Boston, MA), the Zeitgeist Gallery (Cambridge, MA), the Columbus Arts Festival (Columbus, OH), Festival Latino (Columbus, OH), the Creekside Jazz and Blues Festival (Gahanna, OH), the Rumba Caf? (Columbus, OH), the Roger Williams Casino (Providence, RI), the North Kingstown Library Sunday Musicale concert series (North Kingstown, RI), the Braintree Thayer Library concert series (Braintree, MA), the Attleboro Library Community concert series (Attleboro, MA), the Friends of Titus Sparrow Park Concert in the Park series (Boston, MA), WGBH 89.7 FM, “The Jazz Gallery” and WERS 88.9 FM, “The Jazz Oasis” (Boston, MA), Boston Neighborhood Network (BNN Channel 9), “El Show de Fernandito,” (Boston, MA) and COX CABLE CHANNEL 18, “Jazz Talk with Steve Williams,” (Pawtucket, RI). He currently fills the keyboard chair for the Columbus, OH based Silky Ray Blues Band (silkyrayband.com), the Columbus, OH based d?j? vu Latin Rock group (dejavulatinfusionrhythms.com), Columbus, OH based Clave Sonic and also fills the keyboard chair for the Boston, MA rock ensemble, CORDIS (cordismusic.com). He recently completed a Fall ‘06 tour with CORDIS of the east coast and Midwest. In addition, he has served as music director/performer for the Providence Black Repertory Theatre Company (Providence, RI) in their Production of Lady Day at the Emerson Bar and Grille, music director/ performer for the Quincy Dinner Theatre (Quincy, MA) for their production of How to Survive Christmas, and assistant music director/performer for the Emerson College (Boston, MA) production of Berlin to Broadway. Other music director/performer credits include The Morning Star Baptist Church Gospel Chorus Ensemble, Ebenezer Baptist Church Chancel Choir and the Wesley United Methodist Church Choir. He may also be heard on the recording, Solo Piano Music of Ethel Keelan and the Dean Marcellana Latin Jazz Trio Album featuring Oscar Stagnaro on bass and Randy Cloutier on drums. His Latin Jazz Trio album was recently chosen (June ’07) and purchased by the Meijer Corporations “Outside the Mainstream” program.

Eddie Brookshire
Dayton, Ohio
Acoustic Bass, composer (Contrabajo)

Eddie Brookshire (bass) was born in Carthage, MS and moved to Dayton, OH at age six. Originally a clarinet player, while in the US Army Eddie taught himself electric bass. He first toured and recorded with Piney Brown’s Blues Band and also with the Coasters. Later, he formed the fusion band The Causal Society and soon joined Rusty Bryant, recording “Friday Night Funk” with him in 1970. After acoustic bass studies with Larry Gales, Eddie joined the jazz group of James Newton. Later, he attended Central State University, organized the university’s big band, and played in award-winning jazz combos and ethnic ensembles, winning numerous awards at jazz festivals. Eddie attended Northern Illinois University where he took graduate courses in world music and studied bass with Larry Grey and steel drums with Cliff Alexis. He is listed in Who’s Who in Colleges and was a member of Northern’s Down Beat award-winning symphonic Orchestra. Upon completing college, Eddie traveled with vibe player Johnny Lytle, backed up Little Jimmy Scott, and worked in numerous bands, including those of Elvin Jones, Norris Turney, Booty Wood, Sandra Reeves Phillips, Buddy Webb, Cal Collins, Pherez Whitted, Karl Allen, Little Johnny Taylor, Lowell Folson, and Bill Holman. Other bands include Bob Curnow, Maria Schneider, Claude Williams, Snokie Young, Von Freeman, Jimmy Wilkins, Early Warren, John Carter, Billy Harper, Benny Maupin, Jimmy Owens, Nathan Davis, Woody Shaw, Slide Hampton, Gerri Allen, Jay McShan, Roy Ayers, Wilbert Longmire, David Fathead Newman, and Azar Lawrence.

Eddie, a former member of Kishwaukee Illinois Community Symphony Orchestra, * is a member of the AAJC-IAJE Big Band, and received the NAFEO award for excellent performance (acoustic bass) and the Presser Foundation Award for academic excellence. He is a faculty member at Sinclair Community College where he teaches bass, improv, and jazz combo. He also teaches bass and jazz combo at the University of Dayton. He is on the executive board of the A.F.M. Union 101-473.

Along with his Quintet, Eddie also leads the Eddie Brookshire Orchestra.

I would like to thank God my wife Brenda, ny mother, my familys, my children, my aunts, uncles and other relatives, and my friends, Gary King, Larry Gales, Kenny Wilson, Joe Keeble, Jerrry Gillotti, Jack and Nancy Moody. In addition, I thank the past masters of Jazz; the band-Jack, J=Mark, Gary, and Kenny; and a great friend, Bobby LaVell, for his compositions “As I Say to You” Trane Thang” and Edge of the River.”……………

Bobby Matos
Brooklyn, NYC
Latin Percussionist, Composer

Bobby Matos Website

According to Nat Chediak's "Diccionario de jazz latino," the bandleader/percussionist/composer/arranger/producer Bobby Matos was born in the Big Apple in the summer of 1953, although it is likely that the birth of said timbal-playing Leo of Hebrew-Rican ancestry took place years earlier.What truly matters is that Bobby Matos has made multiple and significant contributions to the fervent brew commonly labeled as "Latin jazz," a genre defined by the L.A.-based subject of the following interview as "probably the most rhythmically fascinating music in this hemisphere."

Bronx born Bobby Matos began playing music beating on pots and pans in Grandma’s apartment and went on to backstage informal lessons with conga drum masters Patato Valdez and Mongo Santamaria.

His first gigs were in the early ˜60’s “beat '" bohemian “ Greenwich Village Cafes, but he soon found himself playing in every type of venue; from Bronx dance halls to Carnegie Hall, to elegant supper clubs, Central Park Concerts, Off Broadway theaters, and ˜After Hours” clubs in El Barrio.

He was inspired and encouraged to play timbales by Willie Bobo and Tito Puente, and in the late ˜60s attended the New School and Manhattan School of Music studying composition and arranging. Around this exciting time for Latin Music in N.Y., he recorded “My Latin Soul” for Philips Records. This recording eventually became a much prized cult classic influencing many ˜70’s and ˜80’s Acid Jazz groups on both sides of the Atlantic...

Bobby is a fellow “Life Force Jazz Records” recording artist. Please visit Life Force Jazz Records @:

Life Force Jazz

Edwin "Eddie" Bayard
Montego Bay, Jamaica
Tenor sax, Composer

Eddie originally from Jamaica, came to Harrisburg and started his musical journey that ended at The Ohio State University. Eddie Bayard, a guttural, virtuosic volcano of a Tenor player, Eddie brings pure fire to the Latin rhythms of the Ensemble. This very gifted, and exciting, reedman has been playing for over 10 years! In those very short years he has become one of the countries most talented young lions. He has toured Europe with various jazz groups, and has recently shared the stage with the likes of Marlon Jordan, Gary Bartz and Donald Byrd. Edwin has played with alto saxophonist Wes Anderson(Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra), the late great jazz vocalist Betty Carter, and trumpeter Pharez Whitted among others. His deep sense of self, history, and philosophical view of life permeates his music in a way that touches all who hear. Edwin Bayard is currently gearing up for his first recording as a leader as well as playing with various groups around the country You can find Eddie playing around town with Chad Eby, and Postal. Eddie is a regular member of the Pharez Whitted Quintet, and performs regularly with James Gaitor and the Movement. "Anyone who’s heard Eddie Bayard take an extended solo on a Coltrane piece knows the kind of raw emotion, sheer forcefulness and incredible rhythmic invention he can invest in the man’s music. On the cool night of September 20, Bayard rose in tribute with a solo (on A Love Supreme) that left the room at the Easton Hilton both limp and having distinctly experienced a certain catharsis. Lovell Bradford’s possessed spirit on keys and James Gaiters’ impassioned drums doubtless aided Bayard. Collectively, it was an ecstatic ascension of which Bayard was simply the most outward exponent."—Gerard Cox

Eddie plays Selmer Saxophones.

Mario Abney
Chicago, Illinois
Trumpet, Composer

Mario Abney My Space Website

Mario is graduate from Central State University, School of Music, in Jazz Studies. Mario brings to the group a cool and melodic sound, combined with pure fire influenced by Roy Hargrove, Jerry Gonzalez and Miles Davis. You can always find Mario around town with his quintet, or sitting in with everyone he can. Mario is talented multi-instrumentalist at ease on the piano, the drums, or his trumpet. The other members -- Abney, Ogina Allen, Gregory Hartinson, Garrette Horne, Rhythm Burage, Dylan Schwartz and Kaliq Woods -- have their own bands, but join the Caravan when they can, performing on the streets about three or four times during the week. They're an eclectic bunch and Mario, with his blue head rag and basketball jersey, could fit right in the rap scene, but his muse is decidedly different. A jazz studies student at Ohio's Central State University, he started out playing trumpet at Thornton Township High school in south suburban Chicago. Abney says the streets are a training ground for music. "This is the way we can educate people about music," he says. "Everybody has to come out on the streets at sometime or another. For the people who don't go to jazz clubs, and have business downtown, they're going to hear us." Steve Hawkins, also a trumpet player, has blown his horn on the streets for more than 20 years. He has praise for Abney: "He's fine, he's great, I've been trying to learn from him, he's one of my teachers." Hearing this, Abney just laughs, picks up horn, looks up at the El and blows.

Malcolm Alvarez
Camaguey, Cuba
Tenor Sax, Clarinet and Vocals

Malcolm is energy in motion, as a vocalist and tenor sax man, he complements the sounds of the Ensemble with his energetic interaction with the crowd and raspy tenor solos. From Camaguey, Cuba, Malcolm, first approach to music was via the clarinet, were he excelled and won a variety of competitions (Luis Casas Romero and Jose White) on the clarinet. In 97 He founded the sax quartet-Easy Fingers and performed in the highly regarded Jazz Festival of Havana. His band performed for a variety of tourist centers in Havana and Santa Lucia. From there he moves on to work with some the best Cuban dancing music groups in Havana, including: Salsometro, Orq. De Boleros de Oro, Sandunga and Salsa Brava. Since his arrival to the USA, Malcolm has been performing for a number of groups including Timba-Son, Rolando Matias and Cuba Son, and now he is a fulltime member of The Afro-Rican Ensemble.

Michael “Professor Spira” Goecke
Cincinnati, Ohio
Trombone, Wood flute, Miscellaneaous percussion & composer

Michael Goecke My Space Website

Greetings, this is Professor Spira and I am a jazz trombonist, music educator, and Mucusless Diet Healing System practitioner living in the Cincinnati area. I hold a Bachelor of Music degree in jazz trombone performance (cum laude) from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and I am the first black trombonist in the conservatory’s history to earn a Master of Music degree in jazz studies (summa cum laude). I am currently an adjunct faculty member at Northern Kentucky University where I teach “Survey of African-American Music” and “Music of World Cultures.” Professionally I have had the opportunity to perform with many great musicians, and I am currently a member of the Columbus based Rolado Matias & the Afro-Rican Ensemble (Check out Psychedelic Sally). I also lead a musical organization entitled the Breathairean Ensemble (check out the bands myspace!), which is an all vegetarian band whose mission is to spread health awareness through its music. Inspired by the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Sun Ra our band is very experimental (check me out on my electo-bone; guitar effects pedal hooked to my trombone in the video clip).

Baba Charles Miller
Philadelphia,Pa

Latin Percussion

Baba Charles Miller, has been “marching to many different drums” for over thirty years. A traditional drum carver and multi-percussionist, he seasons a rhythm with international flavors using instruments from Cuba, Brazil, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. He has studied with master drummers in the United States, Singapore, Cuba and Brazil. These traditions are passed on in his own studio, with Drums for Peace, The New School, St. Aloysius Orphanage, Cincinnati Arts Association, Association for the Advancement of Arts Education, the Arts Consortium and Friends of the Arts. He has been staff percussionist at Contemporary Dance Theater for seventeen years.

He has traveled throughout North America, South America, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean learning and sharing the ABC’s of percussion.

He formerly conducted percussion classes at the ACE Middle School engaging students quest for learning with drum rhythms, drum repair and maintenance, as well as secrets of drum carving. Currently he resides in Cincinnati, OH

Baba Charles Miller is a craft and performing artist and an arts education advocate with a knowledge concentration on percussive traditions of the African Diaspora.

Othello Molineaux
Trinidad
Steel Drum, Composer

Reared by parents who were musicians, Molineaux learned to play the piano at a very young age. He became interested in pan music at 11 and, by the age of 15, had learned to tune pans and formed his own band, Wonder Harps. He left Trinidad in 1967 to pursue a musical career as a piano player in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. However, he began focusing on playing pan music and went on to become one of the world's leading "pan jazz" players by the end of the 1990s. Molineaux has appeared in concert around the world, performing extensively in Canada, Japan, and the USA. He has appeared with such American jazz music greats as Monty Alexander, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, Jaco Pastorious, Weather Report, Joe Zawinul and Ahmad Jamal among many others. Over the years, Molineaux has arranged for steelbands in Trinidad, including Laventille Serenaders, Valley Harps, Tripoli, East Side Symphony, Nevados, and Tobago Starlift. In 1998, he arranged the music for the Pamberi Steelband in the Panorama competition. He also wrote a book on learning to play pan, "Beginning Steel Drum," and has made numerous recordings. AWARDS: 1987 - Commendation from the Ohio House of Representatives, USA 1991 - Vanguard Award for Outstanding Leadership Among Black Musicians.