Young Razzcals Jazz Project Press Releases

James Breslin, Baritone Sax

Their Age
Don't Mean
a Thing

Swinging City Kids
Enthrall Telluride

By David Steinberg
Staff writer
Albuquerque Journal, 1995

The baritone saxophone that James Breslin, age 13, plays confidently is almost as tall as he is.
   Eleven-year-old Kristin Childress sings - and scats - with the stage presence of a young Ella Fitzgerald.
   The two are members of the Little Rascals (since changed to the Young Razzcals Jazz Project shortly after this article was released) a nine-member Albuquerque band that won over the audience at Colorado's prestigous Telluride Jazz Celebration last weekend.
   They weren't supposed to play there. They had performed at a restaurant in Silverton, Colo., and went to Telluride just for fun.
   But Paul Machado, producer of the jazz festival, heard them do Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie tunes on a Telluride street corner, and invited the band up on the main stage Sunday night.
   "After the Carribean Jazz Project left the stage, I told the audience 'don't go, this will be worth your wait,'" Machado said. And it was.

   "Their talent, their intonation, their swing, their togetherness - it was all there," he said of the band's performance. The kids - most are 11 or 12 years old - got a standing ovation. When they came offstage, they autographed programs. They got an offer from a company to promote its line of instruments.
   Jazz pianist, Kenny Barron, said he'd give an endorsement for the cover of their first CD, scheduled to be released by the first of the year. They got invitations to perform at national conventions of jazz educators. And Machado said, he wants the band back at Telluride next summer.
   Dave Adams, a keyboardist and retired pilot, formed the Little Rascals out of a larger group of youngsters who jam weekly under his tutilage at the Gulf Coast Eatery. Adams started the jam sessions at the restaurant three years ago. This summer they've been playing once a week on a patio at El Pinto Restaurant.

   Alto Saxophonist, Leon Lewis, 12, and Kristin Childress, the singer, are two of the band's more experienced members. Kristin has been singing for four years and has appeared in musicals at the Albuquerque Little Theatre, the Albuquerque Civic Light Opera, and the Zarzuela de Albuquerque.
   At the other end of the spectrum are 12-year-old percussionist, Michael Alderson, and soprano saxophonist Jennifer McCoy, also 12, who have been playing since only early this year.
   "This is fun. I like playing with these guys," said 11-year-old trumpeter Brynn Rector. Brynn dreams of going to Europe and playing for money on the sidewalks of Paris. She got the idea from James and from Steve Lopez, who plays tenor sax. The two made $75 playing for two hours at a Durango, Colo., arts festival while visiting Steve's grandmother. Brynn's elementary school didn't have a band last year, so she went to Hoover Middle School during lunch hour and played with its beginning band. This year she'll be in Hoover's jazz and symphonic bands.
   James said he was ready to study sax in the fourth grade, but that was the year the Albuquerque Public Schools ended its funding for arts at the elementary level. "I remember that made me really angry," he said. "So one reason I'm playing now is fighting for the cause of getting music back in the schools. And we're showing people that kids our age can play music."

Eight members of the Albuquerque band pose in the hills above Telluride.
Top row from left: James Breslin, baritone sax; Steve Lopez, tenor sax; Leon Lewis, alto sax; Michael Alderson, percussion.
Middle row: Diana Nadelski, tombone; Jennifer McCoy, soprano sax; Brynn Rector, trumpet.
Reclining: Kristin Childress, vocals.