It is my pleasure to introduce Gavin Rice to our readers. Here at The Syncopated Times there is nothing that thrills us more than to learn that there is out here in the hinterlands a twenty-one year old making waves by wearing the clothes of the early 20th century and getting a band together to play music of that period. Rice is a student at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and has made a name in the night scene of Rochester’s East End. He has also started to make connections in New York City, that inevitable draw of talent that has become a necessary step in a music or arts career. If you can make it there you can make it anywhere, though we sure will miss you out here.
He won’t be busking if he lands in New York after graduation, at least not only busking. Gavin makes his Jazz at Lincoln Center debut on February 7, playing banjo, as part of a program focused on ragtime, hot jazz, and swing. Titled Jazz Americana, the program led by Wynton Marsalis and the JLCO also features Terry Waldo as a guest so he will be in good company. Not mentioned in his press materials for this release is the fact that he was presented with the Young Talent Award at last year’s Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party in Whitley Bay, bringing with him the banjo used by Bobby Gillette on the Wolverines’ recordings with Bix Beiderbecke. He brought the same instrument to Bix Fest last summer where he
