Boulder, CO USA

The Coração Brazilian Jazz Quartet is Eric Gunnison on piano, Bill Kopper on guitar, Bill McCrossen on bass, and Raoul Rossiter on drums and percussion.

Each of the members have spent a lifetime performing and recording  jazz, funk, pop, classical, and world music, but they are brought together through their strong passion for the music of Brazil. This ensemble presents an exciting collection of classic and modern jazz compositions in all the styles of the music of Brazil including: Samba, Bossa Nova, Baio, Partito alto, Afoxe, and Ch0ro, etc. Many are transcriptions they have taken off their favorite recordings of favorite Brazilian composers such as Joao Donato, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Baden Powell, Egberto Gismonti, and Pixinguinha to name a few. Some shows may have a focus on the music of a particular composer, and others on a mix of different composers through different time periods.

 

Contact Bill.McCrossen@yahoo.com for more info, to book the band, or to support a CD the band will produce in 2019 thanks to a Pathways to Jazz Grant.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES:
Eric Gunnison, based in Denver since 1980, has led a distinguished music career during which he has not only established himself as a mainstay of the Mile High City’s vibrant jazz scene, but also as an internationally recognized touring sideman/arranger and recording artist. Gunnison was raised in Buffalo, NY and graduated from the Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1979. From 1986 to 1991 he toured internationally and recorded as the pianist and arranger for the legendary jazz vocalist Carmen McRae and was the pianist accompanying McRae on her tours of Switzerland in 1988 and of Cuba in 1999 with Dizzy Gillespie. Gunnison’s current associations include touring internationally/recording with renown vocalist Roberta Gambarini, and also as a pianist with the Dizzy Gillespie All-Stars Big Band and Sextet. He is a founding member of Denver's "Convergence" and throughout his career, has performed with: The Lettermen, Rare Silk, the Christian McBride Big Band, Nelson Rangell, Randy Brecker, Jim McNeely, Chris Potter, Christian McBride, Wallace Roney and Bobby Watson Ron Miles,  among others. As an educator, Gunnison has been a member of the adjunct faculty of the University of Denver’s Lamont School Of Music and on the faculty of the Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts since 2000.

Bill Kopper is a Colorado based guitarist known for his expertise in American Jazz and Blues, and Brazilian Samba and Choro.  Adept on electric, classical, and 7-string classical guitar (commonly used in Samba and Choro), he is featured on a diverse selection of recordings, from his own CDs "Samba de Chueca" and "El Oeste", to Jazz vocalist and 2017 Grammy nominee Rene Marie's CD "Black Lace Freudian Slip" and the soundtrack to her one-woman show "Slut Energy Theory", the Samba/Pagode group Ginga's eponymous EP release, Choro Clarinetist Dexter Payne's discs "Pra Voce" and "Jazz For All", Vocalist Sonya Vallet's debut recording "Moments in Passing", Jazz Saxophonist Nelson Rangell's discs "Soul to Souls" and "American Songbook", trumpet master Brad Goode's "Polytonal Dance Party" and "Chicago Red", Peruvian songstress Cristina Mendoza Vidal's debut release, "La Aurora, Icaros from the Amazon" among many others. He is currently an instructor of guitar at the University of Colorado/Denver where he has taught for the last six years, and divides his time musically among the Brazilian Samba/Pagode group Ginga, the Brazilian Choro/Forro group The Dexter Payne Quintet, the World Jazz group The Hip Richies, Brad Goode's Polytonal Funk Project, and Madrid-based vocalist Sonya Vallet's group Los Profugos Galacticos. 

Bill McCrossen over the past thirty years has been in demand in the New York tristate area, recording and performing in orchestras, Broadway musicals, commercials and television productions.  Bill has also been a professor of Jazz History studies at the Hartford Conservatory of Music and taught bass and jazz improvisation at Five Towns College in New York. Bill has had the pleasure of performing and/or recording with such world class musicians as Michael and Randy Brecker, Clark Terry, Ray Anderson, Gene Bertoncini, Harold Mabern, Kenny Werner, Eliot Zigmund, Adam Nussbaum, Jerry Granelli, Marguerite Juenemann and Art Lande to name a few. Bill is also a member of the New York based free improvising quarter called “INNERrOUTe”. Having relocated in 2014, Bill now calls Colorado his home and is active in the Denver metro area Jazz and Brazilian music scene. He performs regularly at major festivals and venues such as Dazzle and Nocturne. Bill is excited to be involved in this vibrant and talented community of like-minded musicians with many original music projects and free improv ensembles such as the Mmmwhah! Ensemble, the Nalanda Ensemble, and “S" Band, where you might find Bill playing a variety of African instruments such as the Kamale Ngoni, Guembri, Mbira and Kora in addition to the upright and fretless electric bass.

Raoul Rossiter moved to Boulder in 1979 and began playing the drums in 1985. Some highlights in his musical life include: meeting and performing Brazilian music, jazz, R&B, and funk with Mitchell Long (6 years); recording an album with Sonya Valet, and playing with Renée Marie in her band No Maintenance. Recently he has performed with Brazilian artists Casuarina, Moyseis Marques, Ronaldo Andrade, Paula Santoro, and Alessandro Penezzi and locally with Kenny Walker, Bill Kopper, Erik Deutsch, Marguerite Juenemann, Dexter Payne, Diane French, Tina Marx, Ligeia Mare, and many others. Currently he’s the regular drummer for Ginga, Hamster Theatre, the Dexter Payne Quintet.