contemporary jazz

Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Chris Cheek, the son of a junior high school band director, began playing the alto sax at the age of 12. Chris played in a variety of local Jazz and Blues bands in the St. Louis area while attending Webster University. In 1988, on scholarship, he went to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts where he studied with Joe Viola and Hal Crook, eventually receiving a bachelors degree in performance.

Dave Holland (born October 1, 1946) is a British jazz bassist and composer who is a significant representative of avant-garde jazz. Born in Wolverhampton, England, Holland learned to play bass as a child, and spent three years studying the instrument at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. By 1967 he was a regular player at Ronnie Scott's, the premier jazz club in London, backing visiting musicians.

From Marcin's website:
www.marcinmasecki.com I was born in Warsaw in 1982. When I was six months old I moved with my parents to Popayan, Colombia. My father, a clarinetist, started teaching me simple harmony, rhythm and singing when I was three. At the age of seven I moved with my mother to San Fransisco where I began taking piano lessons. A year later I moved back to Poland and continued studies with my grandmother - one of the best piano teachers I know. Since I was seen improvising little melodies here and there I was also sent to my first jazz piano teacher, Jurek Kossacz.

Cyrus Chestnut born on January 17, 1963, in Baltimore, Maryland; son of McDonald (a retired post office employee and church organist) and Flossie (a city social services worker and church choir director). Chestnut started his musical career at the age of six, playing piano at Mount Calvary Baptist Church in hometown. By age nine, he was studying classical music at Peabody Institute. In 1985, Chestnut earned a degree in jazz composition and arranging from Boston's renowned Berklee College of Music.