{"slug": "nick-rossi-jazzopaters-ready-to-deal-the-ellingtonia-in-stanford-s-f", "title": "Nick Rossi, Jazzopaters ready to deal the Ellingtonia in Stanford, S.F.", "summary": "Nick Rossi's Jazzopaters, the West Coast's only group dedicated to Ellingtonia, perform sold-out shows at Stanford Jazz Festival and Mr. Tipple's in San Francisco, reviving overlooked small-group recordings by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn with a nine-piece ensemble.", "body_md": "**Getting your**\n\n[Trinity Audio](//trinityaudio.ai)player ready...Nick Rossi knows that building a world requires paying close attention to the smallest details.\n\nA jazz guitarist, historian educator and leader of the only group on the West Coast devoted exclusively to Ellingtonia, he’s shining a light on a brilliant but oft-overlooked corner of classic American music. His nine-piece Jazzopaters play a sold-out Stanford Jazz Festival concert July 10 and two shows on July 12 at Mr. Tipple’s in San Francisco.\n\nThe Jazzopaters’ repertoire extends beyond the prolific pen of Duke Ellington to encompass Billy Strayhorn’s compositions and arrangements for small group sessions designed to showcase the orchestra’s primary soloists, including alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, trumpeter Cootie Williams, and baritone saxophonist Harry Carny.\n\n“With Strayhorn’s arrival in 1939 his first job for Duke was overseeing these small group recordings,” Rossi said, while noting that the Jazzopaters mission is to focus with creative reverence “on the spirit of the material. At the same time we’re bringing our own voices and approach to the music.”\n\nIn showcasing a stellar cast of exuberantly idiosyncratic musicians he’s embracing the Ellingtonian imperative. Anchoring the reeds and holding down the baritone sax chair defined with soulful panache by Harry Carney for nearly five decades is Kamrin Ortiz.\n\n“Carney was such a force of nature and was so important to those small group sessions, and Kamrin is one of the strongest saxophonists I know,” Rossi said.\n\nTrumpeter James Dunning provides a wide expressive palette as an expert with various mutes, and, as Rossi notes, “the texture of these small group recordings rely on mutes.\n\nClarinetist and tenor saxophonist Nathan Tokunaga, 19, was a junior at Belmont’s Carlmont High when he became a founding Jazzopater, a position he’s reclaimed while on summer break from studying jazz at the New School in New York. He sits next to veteran reed expert Patrick Wolff, the first musician Rossi approached when he decided to launch the Jazzopaters two years ago. They’d worked together extensively in a variety of bands, including bassist Marcus Shelby’s orchestra playing Ellington programs.\n\nOne reason the Jazzopaters idea appealed to Wolff is that many of the Ellington small group sessions were intended for juke boxes, “and most of it is danceable and very riff-based, much more so than in Duke’s big band,” Wolff said. “We’ve done dance shows and sit-down concerts, and we always play very acoustic, with as little sound reinforcement as possible.”\n\nWhen he’s not leading the Jazzopaters, Rossi can often be found playing for dancers, like a July 16 date at Specs’ in North Beach with Nick Rossi’s Swing Club. He’s back at the Mark Hopkins Hotel’s Top of the Mark with his Swing Four on Aug. 1, a monthly residency he’s held for several years. And on Aug. 28, Rossi’s Swing Six plays Lindy in the Park’s 30th anniversary dinner dance at San Francisco’s Verdi Club.\n\nHis expertise in pre-World War II jazz has also found expression on the printed page. He’s written liner notes for a number of acclaimed reissue projects, like an anthology collecting early recording by Chicago piano star Dorothy Donegan. He’s focused his research on overlooked guitarists, like an essay on guitarist Oscar Moore in the booklet for “Nat King Cole Hittin’ The Ramp: The Early Years (1936-1943).”\n\nFor Rossi the past isn’t so much a foreign country as an enticing, dangerous realm where a different set of rules prevailed. When film historian and Noir City Film Festival founder Eddie Muller was looking for a music director, Rossi was a natural choice.\n\n“Nick’s value has been spectacular,” said Muller, who noted that the first wave of film noir in the 1940s featured orchestral scores in the grand European tradition. When jazz was portrayed on screen it was often “a symbol of the underworld, played by Black musicians,” he said.\n\n“But that all started to change in the ‘50s with inventive and progressive film makers using scores by Elmer Bernstein, Alex North, and Duke Ellington, a very interesting cultural shift that Nick understands more than anybody we know.”\n\nHe’s played an increasingly visible role in the Noir City Festival, booking more than a dozen performances at last January’s 23rd edition. His archival skills have come into play too, like a talk he gave for a screening of the forgotten 1945 B film “The Crimson Canary,” which happens to feature nightclub scenes with tenor sax titan Coleman Hawkins.\n\n“Nick knew the whole story of how it was made, where Hawkins was playing in LA at the time,” Muller said. “As a guy who researches and writes about film, it was impressive.”\n\n*Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.*\n\n**NICK ROSSI’S JAZZOPATERS**\n\n**When & where:** 7:30 p.m. July 10 at Campbell Recital Hall in Stanford University; $47; stanfordjazz.org; 6 and 7:45 p.m. July 12 at Mr. Tipple’s, San Francisco; $15-$30; mrtipplessf.com", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nick-rossi-jazzopaters-ready-to-deal-the-ellingtonia-in-stanford-s-f", "canonical_source": "https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/07/07/nick-rossi-jazzopaters-ready-to-deal-the-ellingtonia-in-stanford-s-f/", "published_at": "2026-07-07 18:45:42+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-07 19:00:35.127385+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Nick Rossi", "Jazzopaters", "Duke Ellington", "Billy Strayhorn", "Stanford Jazz Festival", "Mr. Tipple's", "Kamrin Ortiz", "James Dunning"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nick-rossi-jazzopaters-ready-to-deal-the-ellingtonia-in-stanford-s-f", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nick-rossi-jazzopaters-ready-to-deal-the-ellingtonia-in-stanford-s-f.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nick-rossi-jazzopaters-ready-to-deal-the-ellingtonia-in-stanford-s-f.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nick-rossi-jazzopaters-ready-to-deal-the-ellingtonia-in-stanford-s-f.jsonld"}}