Seth Kibel - clarinet, flute, saxophones
Seth is one of the Mid-Atlantic's premier woodwind specialists. Working with some of the best bands in klezmer, jazz, swing, and more, and wowing audiences on saxophone, clarinet, and flute, Seth has made a name for himself in the Washington/Baltimore region, and beyond.
Seth has won a total of 17 Washington Area Music Awards, or Wammies, including being named Best World Music Instrumentalist by in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. In 2005, 2007, and 2008, he was also named Best Jazz Instrumentalist.
In addition to his activities with The Kleztet, Seth has fronted a variety of swing and jazz groups, including The Bay Jazz Project. In 2002, he was commissioned to write, perform, and record an original score for Dreams in the Golden Country, an original theatrical production at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In January 2004, Seth released his first jazz CD, Nuts and Bolts. His second solo album, The Great Pretender, was a blues/jazz project released in July 2007 on the Azalea City Recordings record label.
He can also currently be seen with the Washington/Baltimore area's most exciting swing and jump blues band, The Natty Beaux. Seth has appeared with such notables as Sam Moore (Sam & Dave), Percy Sledge, The Coasters, and Johnnie Johnson. He has performed at the Kennedy Center, the Carter Barron Amphitheatre, the Lowell Folk Festival in Lowell, Massachusetts, as well as on several European tours.
Seth Kibel homepage
Helen Hausmann - violin, mandolin
Helen joined The Alexandria Kleztet in 2004. In addition to klezmer and classical music, Helen’s talents have extended to a range of styles and instruments including roots-rock violin, back-up vocals, and mandolin. She was a Wammie nominee in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006 for Best Roots Rock Instrumentalist. Classically trained, she’s played in the Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax symphonies in Virginia; the Boston Civic Symphony, and the Rome Festival Orchestra (including a concert at the Vatican). Her touring experience includes several European tours and the Semanas Musicales music festival in Frutillar, Chile with The Kleztet.
She’s shared the stage with such notables as SONiA of disappear fear, including the 2009 Kerrville Folk Festival in San Antonio, Texas; and Patty Reese, Billy Coulter, Jon Carroll and John Jennings at the 2008 Warren Zevon Tribute at Wolf Trap; among others.
Performance venues include the Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap, MCI Center, Strathmore, Takoma Park Folk Festival, Washington Folk Festival, as well as NY's CBGBs.
Her versatile playing has made her a much-sought session player in the Washington/Baltimore region. Recent recording project contributions include SONiA & disappear fear's "tango," Siobhan Quinn and Michael Bowers' “dreamers, lovers and outlaws,” “A Chanukah Feast,” an album for the DC-based charity Hungry for Music...and others.
Helen Hausmann Photography
Scott Harlan - electric and acoustic basses, keys, samples and sequences
Scott Harlan is an electric bassist and singer from the Washington, DC area who has performed in settings ranging from the 1999 Montreux Jazz Festival (with jazz quintet "Straight Ahead") to the Kennedy Center (with The Kleztet). After working for many years in the jazz-fusion genre, his style has mellowed into more of a funk/jazz/world/folk mixture, often finding him playing bass more like a piano (multiple layers of parts being played by each hand independently), and singing on top simultaneously.
Scott's first CD caught the attention of many highly respected publications, with Jazz Times Magazine saying,"... a virtuoso player ... prepare to be wowed by the sheer dexterity and imagination of Scott Harlan", and with Bass Frontiers Magazine saying, "Scott Harlan can play! [He] executes precise, clean funk fusion on some solidly self-penned tunes." With the variety of musical experience and schooling in his background, and influences like Cassandra Wilson, Victor Wooten, Edwin McCain, U-2, John Scofield, and more, expect to hear something fun, introspective, technically impressive, passionate, and true.
Scott Harlan homepage
Golden Sound Studio
Scott Harlan on MySpace
Tim Jarvis - drums, percussion, melodica
At the age of nine, Tim began studies for, and performance in, his elementary school's band and he continued to perform in school bands up through his college years. In 1970, he began teaching snare drum, professionally. Two years later, he began playing drumset and percussion for community theater productions, quickly moving up to the percussionist's chair in Burn Brae Dinner Theatre's pit band. Prior to completing studies of concert percussion, at The University of Maryland, he performed with the Annapolis Symphonies (Leon Fleischer conducting). During music studies at the university, he worked as a session musician at the Track Records Studio, in Silver Spring.
In the following decades he widened his percussion studies to include numerous areas of 'world music' percussion. In the early 1990s he travelled to New York city's, The Drummers Collective, in order to study with world-class percussionists, including among them: Frank Malabe, Bobby Sanabria, and Duduka da Fonseca. His 40 year musical career has included performances on National Public Radio and PBS, as well as local television and radio spots. He has performed everything from circus band music (Busch Gardens, Williamsburg), to country blues (Ben Andrews Blue Riders), as well as numerous popular American music genres spanning from the 1920s, through the 1990s.
Tim Jarvis on MySpace