2026 Festival Jazz Clinicians

Dr. Steve Roach / TJF Director

Steve has been the Director of Jazz Studies at Sacramento State University since 2001. He has also served as Director of Jazz Studies at Baylor University and has held teaching positions at the University of Northern Colorado and Northern Illinois University. Steve’s duties at Sacramento State include directing large jazz ensembles, the Latin Jazz Ensemble, and teaching courses in jazz pedagogy and jazz history. In addition, Roach directs the annual Winter Jazz Festival and Trad Jazz Youth Band Festival at Sacramento State. Steve holds a Bachelor of Music degree in trumpet performance from Indiana University, a Master of Music degree in trumpet performance from Northern Illinois University, and a Doctor of Arts degree in trumpet and jazz pedagogy from the University of Northern Colorado. Professional appearances as an assisting artist by Roach include studio and live sessions with such jazz/pop musicians as Tito Puente, Louis Bellson, Conrad Herwig, Lou Rawls, Jon Tchicai, Ben Vereen, Melissa Manchester, Toni Tennille, Roberta Flack, Rosemary Clooney, Jeffrey Osbourne, Carl Fontana, Paquito D’ Rivera, the Glenn Miller and Jimmy Dorsey Orchestras, and others. Steve is currently serving on the Executive Board for the California Institute for the Preservation of Jazz and the Capital Section of the California Music Educators Association. Roach also works as a clinician and adjudicator for jazz festivals and workshops nationwide and has directed several California high school honor jazz ensembles including the Sacramento Capital Section Honor Jazz Band, the San Mateo Honor Jazz Band, the Fresno-Madera County Honor Jazz Band, and the Solano County High School Honor Jazz Ensemble. For more information on the Sacramento State Jazz Studies program, visit: www.csus.edu/music/jazz

Danny Coots / Featured Guest Artist

It was 1964 in upstate New York when Danny Coots began playing drums at the tender age of 6 years old. Since then, he has studied with Nick Baffaro, Rich Holly, Alan Koffman and Jim Petercsak in percussion.

Danny attended The Crane School of Music and St. Lawrence University.  He eventually served as adjunct faculty at St. Lawrence University, Clarkson University and Potsdam State University from the 1970s into the 1990s.

He continued traveling and performing with David Amram, Ray Shiner, Daniel Pinkham, Herb Ellis, Will Alger, Jack Mayhue, Speigle Wilcox, Mimi Hines, Phil Ford, Bob Darch, Pearl Kaufman and Arthur Duncan. 

In 1996 Danny moved to Nashville, Tennessee and has lived there ever since. Danny has recorded extensively in Nashville, New York and L.A. and has appeared in over 100 countries. He has played on over 160 recordings, one of which won a Grammy in 2005.

After moving to Tennessee, Danny joined the Jack Daniel’s Silver Cornet Band for 5 years and helped found the Titan Hot Seven. During this time he played and recorded with Dick Hyman, Russell Malone, Mark Shane, Freddie Cole, Houston Person, Bob Wilber, Johnny Varro, Jeff Coffin, Tim Laughlin, Harry Allen, Frank Vignola, Dave Hungate, Bill Allred, John Allred, Randy Reinhart, Ron Hockett, John Cocuzzi, John Sheridan, Dan Barrett, Vince Giordano, Rebecca Kilgore, Ken Peplowski, Duke Heitger, Neville Dickie, Bob Shultz, Nicki Parrott, Bucky Pizzarelli, John Pizzarelli, Yve Evans, Chuck Hedges, Warren Vache and Allen Vache to name a few.

Dr. Roach is pleased to announce the following outstanding clinicians for 2018 Festival  (in alphabetical order):

Justin Au / Trumpet

Justin is an alumnus of the Sacramento Jazz Education Foundation’s programs and one of the finest high-school jazz programs in the nation. Playing a variety of jazz styles, he has toured New York, Japan, Puerto Rico, China, and Brazil.  He has also played at jazz festivals all over the nation. While living in San Luis Obispo, he served as co-director of the official youth band of the Basin Street Regulars Jazz Society in Pismo Beach and has worked as a clinician with student musicians at the Teagarden Jazz Festival and summer camp. As a passionate music educator, he taught after-school jazz programs in San Juan and Sac City districts for 4 years, and substitute taught in music for 2 years before becoming a fully credentialed teacher in 2019. He served as the Director of Jazz Ensembles for the Sacramento Youth Band for many years and is currently an instrumental music teacher for Vacaville Unified School District (since 2019).

Justin can be heard regularly with various groups such as The Crescent Katz, Peter Petty, Harley White Jr. Orchestra, Jessica Malone, Chicago the Tribute, The West End Stompers, Element Brass Band, Blue Street Jazz Band, Katie Knipp, and the Cunha Big Band.

Clint Baker / Trumpet / Trombone/ Tuba

Clint Baker is one of the few musicians to lead a traditional jazz band at the world-renowned Monterey Jazz Festival, joining the ranks of Louis Armstrong, Turk Murphy, and Jack Teagarden.  He has been a bandleader since 1984, and he produced his first record album in 1991. Since then, he has produced seven recordings including “In the Groove,” “Going Huge,” and “Tears.”

Clint Baker’s New Orleans Jazz Band appeared at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1992 and has toured festivals in the U.S. and Canada.

A multi-instrumentalist, Clint performs regularly with The Yerba Buena Stompers (tuba), The Delta Stompers (guitar/banjo), Hot Club of San Francisco (bass), The Cafe Borrone All-Stars (trumpet, trombone, drums, clarinet, guitar, etc.), The Reynolds Brothers Rhythm Rascals (clarinet, trombone, and bass), The Ray Skjelbred Quartet/Ray Skjelbred and His Cubs (bass), The Grand Dominion Jazz Band (trumpet) and Usonia Jazz (various).

Clint is also a noted jazz educator. He taught on staff with the Jim Cullum Jazz Band at the Stanford Jazz Workshop. He frequently guest-lectures at San Mateo Community College and the Community School of Music and Arts at the Finn Center, and is currently an instructor at numerous adult jazz camps. He has been the Staff Archivist and Curator for the San Francisco Traditional Jazz Foundation.

Dan Barrett / Trombone / Trumpet

Born in Pasadena, California, and raised in nearby Costa Mesa, Dan Barrett began playing the trombone at the age of eleven, and the cornet shortly thereafter. In high school he formed his first group, the Back Bay Jazz Band. This sextet presented the music of King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton and other early jazz greats to Southern California audiences. During this time, Dan played many local jobs with the great New Orleans musicians Ed “Montudie” Garland; Alton Purnell; Mike DeLay; Joe Darensbourg; Nappy Lamare; and Barney Bigard, hearing about the “old days” first-hand.

In 1977, Dan made the first of many trips to Europe, to appear as a young man at the Breda International Jazz Festival in Holland. Many passports later, he is a welcome guest at dozens of jazz festivals abroad, and has formed close friendships with many

musicians overseas. Dan and his wife, Laura, moved to New York City in 1983. (Their son Andrew is a native New Yorker, and a talented ragtime pianist). At Eddie Condon’s jazz club in Manhattan, Benny Goodman first heard Dan play. Shortly thereafter, the Swing Era icon asked Dan to join what would be the King of Swing’s last orchestra. While in New York, Dan also co-led the popular Howard Alden – Dan Barrett Quintet (the ABQ).

Dan has played both valve and slide trombones for many motion pictures, including The Cotton Club and Brighton Beach Memoirs, as well as Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite, Everyone Says I Love You, and Bullets Over Broadway. If you look fast, you can see Dan on the screen in the latter film. (He’s featured a bit more in Wild Man Blues. This award-winning film documents a three-week tour of Europe by Woody Allen’s New Orleans Jazz Band). Dan has performed five times at Carnegie Hall, including once with Woody Herman and the New York Pops Orchestra, and another time in a tribute to Louis Armstrong featuring Wynton Marsalis.

Barrett has recorded under his own name, and as a sideman with many respected jazz artists. A partial list includes: Doc Cheatham; Scott Hamilton; Bob Haggart; Ralph Jay McShann; Dave Frishberg; Benny Carter; Buck Clayton; and Benny Goodman.

Katie Cavera / Bass/ Vocals

Katie Cavera has made a name for herself on the West Coast and in Europe playing 20’s and 30’s classic jazz. She is a rhythm guitar specialist in the style of Freddie Green and Al Casey. She also plays hot 20’s plectrum and tenor banjo, New Orleans style string bass, and sings in the 20’s pop style of Helen Kane and Ruth Etting.

Jazz critic Jim Leigh and bandleader/multi-instrumentalist Clint Baker have dubbed her the “California Sunshine Girl” because of her upbeat singing style and sunny stage personality. She currently works at Disney California Adventure with the Ellis Island Boys and with the cabaret performance group Vaud and the Villains.

Katie Cavera is originally from Southern Indiana.  She attended Indiana University and studied jazz performance and composition with Dr. David Baker, playing with his Jazz Ensemble in a special presentation of Duke Ellington Masterworks at the Smithsonian Institution.

Since moving to Southern California, Katie has become a sought-after guitarist, banjoist, and bassist. Her credits include working with Jug Band legend Jim Kweskin, Jim Cullum’s Jazz Band at The Landing in San Antonio, Texas, and members of Turk Murphy’s Jazz Band including Bob Helm, Leon Oakley, and Ray Skjelbred.

From 2006 – 2009 she was part of the Jerome Savary production of “à la recherche de Josephine (Looking for Josephine)” a musical about New Orleans Jazz, Hurricane Katrina, and Josephine Baker. Katie played guitar and tenor banjo in the production, and notated the original score written by David Boeddinghaus. The musical premiered at the Opera Comique in Paris, France in the fall of 2006 and returned for an encore presentation in the spring of 2007.  The show was nominated for a Molière Award (the national theatre award of France bestowed by APAT, the Association Professionnelle et Artistique du Théâtre) and toured extensively through France and Spain from 2007 – 2008. In 2009 the show toured Austria and Germany and had its American premiere in Montclair, New Jersey.

Katie is a member of ASCAP, a Loar Performing Artist, and a member of the Academy of Magical Arts.

Neil Fontano / Piano

Neil Angelo Fontano grew up in Petaluma, California around a diversely musical family who supported his artistic interests. While his Grammy award-winning father cued his ear for more commercial music, his grandmother facilitated his piano ventures and both grandparents exposed him to classical music, ragtime, boogie woogie and bluegrass. 

By age 12 he began to study under his musical mentor, internationally-acclaimed concert pianist and composer, Peter Vincent Marlotti. 

After attending the 2005 Sacramento Jazz Jubilee with his grandfather, Neil discovered his love for jazz. And once Marlotti introduced him to Gershwin’s music, he fully realized his passion for music. 

After high school Neil briefly studied Jazz theory with pianist John Simon at Santa Rosa Junior College. 

Going on to play for and musically direct some local musical theater productions with the likes of Trevor Hoffmann and Aja Gianola, Fontano has performed and recorded around Northern California and beyond with a range of jazz, gospel, classical and pop artists including Emily Day, Stella Heath, Gunhild Carling, Clint Baker, Mando Dorame, Heidi Evelyn, Atarah Richmond, Daisy Gray, his own namesake collaboration band with Yanos “Johnny Bones”, Johnny Fontano and is prominently recorded playing on Maria Muldaur’s recent Blues chart-topping tribute album to Victoria Spivey, “One Hour Mama”. 

Neil also currently serves as assistant band director at his former Jr. High and High Schools where he instructs students in the concert, marching and jazz bands. 

Marilyn Keller / Vocals

Marilyn T. Keller, 2016 Jazz Society of Oregon Hall of Fame Inductee, is a 40-year veteran of music and stage performance in Jazz, Gospel, R&B, Pop, Blues, and theater, nationally and internationally. Her musical roots are diverse. Marilyn has built a career that has taken her as a feature artist to Denmark, Sweden, Norway, The Netherlands, Spain, Australia, Russia and the UK for concerts, festivals, nightclubs and recording work. Her voice can be heard on multiple recordings, movie sound tracks, commercials and documentaries. Marilyn’s formative jazz training was as a member of the Mt. Hood Community College Vocal Jazz Ensemble and as the vocalist fronting the award-winning MHCC Jazz Lab Band. She can be seen frequently at clubs, restaurants, festivals and holiday events throughout the Pacific Northwest. She remains active, performing with Don Latarski, Darrell Grant, Tom Grant, Black Swan Classic Jazz Band, Pressure Point Band and the Augustana Jazz Quartet, among many others.

Marilyn is dedicated to music education and has worked with:

• Dr. Paul Klemme, at Willamette University- choirs and jazz ensembles.
• Dr. Dean Luethi, at Washington State University, Pullman, Washington.
• Marilyn has given clinics and master classes for the Newport Arts Council, Tigard High School, Rex Putnam High School, Grant High School and The American Music Program, as well as many other grade schools, middle school and high school choirs and bands.

Marilyn is Currently an Adjunct Professor at PSU, teaching Vocal Jazz Improvisation.

Tim Metz / Drums

Tim Metz is a native of Sacramento, having left to attend William Paterson University in Wayne, NJ earning a BM in Jazz Studies in 2001. He returned to Sacramento in the Fall of 2001 where he quickly became one of the top call jazz drummers. In between a heavy teaching schedule—over 40 drum students per week—Metz continues to consistently perform with some of the world’s greatest musicians, including alto sax masters Jeff Clayton and Jacam Manricks, pianists Joe Gilman, the legendary Donald Brown, Art Hirahara, and Jim Martinez, guitarist Larry Koonse, bassists Darek Oles and Todd Johnson, and The Santa Rosa Symphony Pops to name a few. He is also one of YouTube’s most popular Jazz Drum Lesson Creators with over 2 million views on his channel. Tim has been a faculty member of the Teagarden Jazz Camp.

Joe Midiri / Reeds

The Midiri Brothers have made music, both jazz and classical, the focus of their lives since graduating Glassboro State College in the mid 1980s. On recordings they can be heard leading groups ranging from trios, quintets, sextets and big bands all featuring Joe’s outstanding clarinet and saxophones and Paul on the vibraphone, xylophone, marimba, drums and trombone!

After spending nearly a decade working in Philadelphia, New York and Atlantic City, they began to branch out. They performed first at The Great Connecticut Jazz Festival where in July 2009 they can still be heard. In 2002 the group made their west coast debut and since that time are featured at many west coast jazz festivals including Mammoth Lakes Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, The Pismo Jubilee by the Sea, Redwood Coast Music Fest, and Sun Valley Swing-n-Dixie Jazz Jubilee, as well as the Central Illinois Jazz Fest in Decatur, Ill. The Midiri Brothers have also played for many jazz clubs from Chicago to Florida. They have had major articles written about them in both The Mississippi Rag and The American Rag, both respected jazz newspapers. The L.A. Jazz Magazine stated, ” Catch them whenever you can!” as well as ” their sextet is one of the most exciting small group swing units around today.”

They can also be heard in their home state of N.J. playing both concerts and dances. Two of the most popular concert venues, both run by their good friend and supporter Bruce Gast, are the Bickford Theater in Morristown, N.J. and Ocean County College. The Golden Inn in Avalon N.J. has featured the Midiri Brothers Big Band as part of their Big Band Get Away weekend package for nearly a decade. The big band features many of the arrangements of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and the Dorsey Brothers as well as many of their own arrangements.

The Diversity of the Midiri Brothers can be heard on their many recordings, notably “Trees”, “A Shaw Thing”, “In the Garden” And “Finger Bustin’”.  Recently they have recorded two CDs with the Brooks Tegler Orchestra and one with Harry Salotti. “