Leon Cotter plays at the Jack London

Cape Jazz - Music from South Africa

• Leon Cotter (saxophone)
• Noah Simpson (trumpet)
• Kiran Raphael (piano)
• Michael Raynor (drums)
• Andrew Jones (bass).

Saxophonist Leon Cotter has led a musical double life, spending much of the last decade touring the country with soul/blues band The California Honeydrops, while maintaining a reputation as a sought after sideman in Portland’s local jazz scene.  This November, he returns to the Jack London with a set of music from South Africa. South Africa has (and continues to have) a thriving jazz scene that has paralleled the scene in the US since the early '50s. Over the years, musicians like Abdullah Ibrahim (aka Dollar Brand), Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela became internationally recognized, and Masekela’s 1968 hit ‘Grazing in the Grass’ topped the US Hot 100 chart. This past summer, Leon and the Honeydrops put together a set of South African jazz that was performed at High Sierra Music Festival, and it was just too much fun to play that music only once. So if you missed that set (or even if you saw it and wanted to hear more), come check out 2 full sets of Cape Jazz