I will be singing at Jazz Central with Joe Strachan (piano) and Ted Olson (bass).

Ted Olsen is a bassist and composer based in Minneapolis, MN. As a bandleader his groups have been featured at the Twin Cities Jazz Festival, The Artists’ Quarter, and Icehouse in the Twin Cities. He has also performed at Nocturne Jazz Club in Denver, CO & Festival No Improviso in Curitiba, Brazil. In composition he won the 2012 Eric Stokes Song Contest held by the American Composers’ Forum. Additionally in 2015 he was a finalist in the ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composers’ competition. As a sideman he is regularly enlisted by top Twin Cities jazz luminaries and has also branched out into working with artists from the folk, rock, R&B, and contemporary classical scenes.

Pianist Joe Strachan is a 2013 graduate of the University of Minnesota, and was the pianist for the third edition of the Dakota Combo (2008-09) while attending Northfield High School. A former student of Laura Caviani and Bryan Nichols, he first studied classical music, switching to jazz in eighth grade. After a year at Lawrence Conservatory of Music, he transferred to the U of M in Minneapolis where he found more performance opportunities, appearing at the Artists Quarter, Dakota and Studio Z and playing with John Raymond, Jake Baldwin, Alicia Steele, the Jazz Wonderband and more. More recently he has performed with the Adam Meckler Orchestra, Pete Whitman X-Tet, Endeavors, Jake Baldwin’s Quintet, and as part of the Off the Cuff improvisation series at the Aster Cafe.