HISTORY:
1975 | 1977 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 to present

1975 Page 3

Next came The Tito Puente Orchestra with opening group Full Circle: John Phillips, reeds; Dick Wright, trumpet and trombone; Dan Skea, Fender Rhodes, piano; Brace Phillips, bass; Alex Acuña, drums; Don Alias and Walfredo De Los Reyes, percussion, at the Aladdin Hotel Ballroom, June 27. Carl Saunders, trumpet; Bob Pierson, Jay Cameron, saxophones; Paul Gormley, bass; Dan Skea, piano; and Eagle-Eye Shields, drums, played July 14 at the first Jazz Society Night jam sessions open to the public at the Local #369 Union Hall on Tropicana Avenue.

On August 27 Monk reported the IRS had granted the Society tax-exempt status. That month Full Circle recorded an album for Monk's Bean Records at Spectrum Studios in Venice, California. An October 17 Jazz Picnic at Paradise Park was cosponsored by the Jazz Society and Musicians Local #369; then came Sarah Vaughan with the Ron Carter Trio (Dave Grusin, piano; Harvey Mason, drums) and local group Verity, led by guitarist John Palmer, October 24 at The Attic in Commercial Square.

On November 20 LVJS held an Open House Jazz Party at the home of Monk Montgomery on Nakona Lane. Rounding out 1976, Louis Bellson, Alex Acuña, Walfredo de Los Reyes, Walfredo Reyes (his son), and noted Cuban bassist, Cachao, participated in a Drum Clinic with Full Circle on December 6, at the Musicians Union. 1977 The Max Roach Quartet inaugurated the 1977 LVJS concerts, opening with Inner Beauty, the Rudy Aikels group with vocalist Edie Aikels, January 9 at UNLV. Later that month, Monk, Jay Cameron and Dan Skea met with Ann McCullough, a Denver community arts specialist, to put together a grant proposal to the National Endowment for the Arts, a funding idea hatched the previous October.

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