This is the doorway to web pages featuring Southern California bandleaders with whom I work, and fellow musicians with whom I have made some very enjoyable jazz music. This page will be expanded and updated when appropriate. Here, in no particular order, are brief comments and links to active pages as of January 2002.

Don Miller -- vocalist, Latin drummer, and leader of the Don Miller Orchestra. In addition to being playing partners in the trombone section with Charlie Morillas, I was also privileged to do occasional musical arrangements and vocal selections, including duets with Don on "Two of a Kind" and my son Daniel on "All of Me." (I also appreciate the great solo opportunities on arrangements by fellow band members Jeff Driskill and Brian Williams.) We recently finished an 11-year run at Birraporetti's, a Costa Mesa restaurant, and we continue to play engagements in the Southern California area from time to time. Highlights of the past 10 years include an engagement in Hawaii, an engagement in New York City, playing "warmup" music for tapings of "The Nanny" and "Seinfeld" (sitcoms), and a CD of the band ("This Swingin' Life") that is still available from Amazon.com. The title track from the CD (including my 32-bar jazz solo!) was used on the trailer of Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special ("I'm Telling You for the Last Time"), which is still available as a home video from Amazon.com. Here is a link for the band's web site:

Ted Herman -- alto saxophonist and band leader at Indio, California. I have played with Ted in various concert settings in "the Desert," the "Inland Empire" and the Orange County area. The highlight of my work with Ted includes a number of shows at Fantasy Springs Casino that featured celebrities such as Jerry Vale and the Four Freshmen. The band's (sometimes) web site is at:

Johnny Crawford -- singer, dancer, guitarist, and all-around 1930's afficionado. (Yes, he was "Mark" on "The Rifleman" on television w-a-a-a-y back in the 1960's.) I have played with him at a number of clubs and hotels in the Southern California area. Here is his web site:

Barry Cole -- singer, leader of "The Sounds of Music" based out of Newport Beach, California. He is the first bandleader I worked for, when I moved to Orange County in 1985, and we have done gigs together too numerous to mention, including one in Orlando, Florida and one in Las Vegas. Here is the web site for the Sounds of Music:

Eddie Reed -- singer, clarinetist, bandleader. I have played gigs with him from L.A. to San Diego to Palm Springs. Here is his web site:

Bill Elliott -- singer, arranger/composer, bandleader. This guy not only writes great swing arrangements, but he also hires a four-member vocal group to spice up the band's presentation. I have worked with him on various occasions in Hollywood, L.A., and San Diego. Here is his web site:

Johnny Zell -- trumpeter formerly with the Lawrence Welk Orchestra, he has a musical ministry out of the Simi Valley area. I have played a number of engagements with him, including some with his big band and dixieland band, and an appearance on the Trinity Broadcasting Network back in the late 1980s. Johnny has a family-oriented presentation, in keeping with his years with the Welk organization. Here is his web site:

Wade Preston -- singer, bandleader. Here is his web site:

Ben Di Tosti -- jazz pianist par excellence, and my partner in a duo CD recorded in 1992 that is just now on the verge of being released to the public. We also several years ago made a quintet recording of songs by Henry Mancini from "Victor/Victoria", and we are hoping to finish the editing on this tape so it, too, can be released in the near future. I first met Ben when he and I were sidemen for Barry Cole, and we quickly discovered how much fun it was to make jazz together in a one-on-one situation. We experimented with different formats, including a few gigs with guitarist Roy Scoutz, but the duo setting seems to work best. Ben also has a solo piano jazz CD available. For details, go to his web site:

Beegie Adair (& friends) -- Beegie is one of my stalwart jazz colleagues from Nashville, Tennessee. We have done jazz gigs as recently as May 2001 and as far back as 1977 (or further). She is a pianist and vocalist and has a growing number of simply delightful recordings that can be purchased from Amazon.com. Beegie teaches at the Nashville Jazz Institute, along with bass player and colleague, Roger Spencer, a member of her trio. On our gig in 2001, longtime friend and super tenor sax player, Denis Solee, dropped by to play a set with us, and it was as if the 16 years since we last played together had never existed. It was that good and that natural. He just opened up his sax case, and the music started happening. Denis, too, has a number of tasty recordings available from Amazon.com. Here is the web site for Nashville Jazz Institute:

Rex Peer -- my trombone teacher during my grade school and high school years, later my colleague on numerous music jobs in the Midwest and the Nashville area, he and his wife have been living in Hawaii for several years now. Rex was an incredible teacher and role model and introduced me to the world of jazz. He was a member of the ABC tv studio orchestra in New York City and the Sauter-Finnegan and Benny Goodman Bands during the 1950s. Later, in Nashville, he was a member of the Bill Walker tv orchestra from the 1960s to the 1990s, as well as a member of the Nashville Brass during the 1960s and 1970s and the Lewis Brown Orchestra during the 1970s and 1980s. He and I had a quintet in the late 1970s called "Hipbones," which did several engagements, including one for WPLN-FM and two at the Exit-Inn (a local nightclub). A search on google.com will reveal a number of Rex's hard-to-get recordings.

This is a partial, off-the-top-of-my-head listing. I welcome suggested additions and corrections!

Write to me at: REBissell@aol.com