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Ellen Rowe Quartet, and guitarists Mimi Fox and Jackie King
At the San Jose Jazz Festival

We're at the San Jose Jazz Festival in California on a Saturday afternoon, August, 2003. Although this festival is known for being outdoorsy, with half a dozen stages scattered downtown, there's also a stage in the San Jose Repertory Theater. "The Rep" is where you go when you're sunned out and need air conditioning, low lights, and more sweet music.

Our two artists are very accomplished women who work happily and productively outside major cities. Guitarist Mimi Fox drove over from Vallejo. Mimi grew up in Queens and she's hung onto some of that East Coast attitude, even though she mellowed out when she moved to California. She heads the guitar department at Jazzschool in Berkeley.

One of Mimi's favorite musical partners is Jackie King, whose "day job" is with Willie Nelson's band. When Mimi and Jackie find time to play together, they have so much fun that the music sounds like laughter itself! With Rich Girard on the bass and David Rokeach at the drums, their fingers fly on a samba and a ballad.

Pianist/Professor Ellen Rowe (pictured above) comes from the University of Michigan, and a theme in her compositions is her love of the wilderness. Ellen climbed Mount Washington on her way to San Jose. Her compositions are graceful and thoughtful. "Sylvan Way" commemorates her first cat; it reminds her of light filtering through the trees. "For That Which Was Living Lost" is a lament for endangered species. Andrew Bishop plays soprano and tenor saxophones, with Kurt Krahnke on bass and Pete Siers on drums.

View the lead sheet for "Sylvan Way"

SONG LIST
Mimi Fox
"Angel Eyes" (Brent/Dennis, Music Sales, ASCAP)
"Samba for Charlie" (King)
"Raquel Mi Amor" (Fox, (Total Mensch Music, BMI)

Ellen Rowe
"Sylvan Way" (Rowe, ASCAP)
"For That Which Was Living Lost" (Rowe, ASCAP)
"The Phoenix" (Rowe, ASCAP)

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