Thanks to everyone who came out this Monday night, March 19th, 2018. Amos, Sam and Brendan played a brilliant set of jazz standards to launch the event and it was nothing short of inspiring. Lee Snelgrove from OneColumbia filled us in on Amplify Columbia. Let your voice be heard! Fill out the survey now! We … Read more
David Liebman, a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and saxophone legend, has been announced as the Master Clinician for the USC ColaJazz Camp taking place on July 13-15, 2018. Liebman gained worldwide notoriety playing with Miles Davis. With a career stretching nearly fifty years, Liebman has played with masters … Read more
HOUSE RESOLUTION SALUTES MARK RAPP AS AMBASSADOR OF JAZZ FOR THE CITY OF COLUMBIA AND THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA Columbia, SC, Feb 20th, 2018: On Thursday, February 8th, during the morning legislative session, House Representatives Kirkman Finlay and Beth Bernstein presented jazz trumpeter Mark Rapp with the framed resolution naming him jazz ambassador of … Read more
Welcome to the 1st annual ColaJazz Festival! My name is Mark Rapp, founder of ColaJazz and in partnership with the Music Farm Columbia, producer of this, our 2018 ColaJazz Festival. I firmly believe Columbia, our capital city, ought to be the cultural hub offering the best in the arts. We can be and are showing … Read more
GRAMMY-nominated saxophonist and Columbia, SC native Chris Potter returns home to headline the 2018 ColaJazz Festival. Columbia, SC, Nov 22nd, 2017: Grammy-nominated artist Chris Potter, arguably the best living saxophonist in jazz, will headline the 2018 ColaJazz Festival in Columbia on Feb 3, 2018. Potter grew up in Columbia, and graduated from Dreher High School. … Read more
Thanks to the Jordan Lawrence and the FreeTimes for the write-up on our inaugural ColaJazz Fest! Please visit the original post: https://www.free-times.com/music/chris-potter-to-headline-inaugural-colajazz-festival/article_125ebe3c-c0bd-11e7-aef4-1fa54932a2e4.html Jazz in Columbia is doing pretty good. With local artists taking over last night’s First Thursday on Main art crawl with a mini jazz fest and finding their way into new rooms (Chayz … Read more
I, Mark Rapp, had the honor of hosting and playing the headlining concert at the 2017 SC Jazz Festival for the Dizzy Gillespie’s Centennial Celebration. It was an amazing evening filled with fiery trumpeters, Eleazar Shaffer and Jon Thornton, accompanied by the up-and-coming, saxophone phenom, Ben Eidson, and backed by an all-star band with Danny … Read more
Recently, someone asked me about licks and stated that “using saxophone licks is not improvising.” I agree with that statement, but only to a point. After all, licks are like vocabulary. It’s all about how you put things together in the moment. Someone with a good vocabulary may or may not be a good writer/story … Read more