Kickstarter

Hello Everyone,

Below is a sample recording from our April 4 gig at Gingko Blue!  Didn't Ken Gardiner and Travis Searle do a nice job recording and mastering?!  Not to mention the musicians!

We have 21 more days left in our campaign.  If you like what you hear, please consider sharing this project with friends by Liking this post on Facebook and/or posting/e-mailing this link to friends.

It would be very helpful for us to raise funds beyond our goal for the additional Live recording on June 6 at Gingko Blue.  We will be recording four songs with Vocalist Colleen Clark, Pianist Emmett Harrity, Bassist Nick Merriam, and Drummer Rob Schreiber:  After You've Gone, Besame Mucho, I Cried for You, and Indian Summer.  The completed project will consist of four vocal numbers and four instrumental numbers. 

Thank you so much for your support!

Very truly yours,

Rob Schreiber

P.S.  Below are biographies of the musicians.

Vocalist Colleen Clark has been singing in a professional setting since the age of five. She is heavily influenced by several different genres of music as her training has ranged from a classical choral setting, to musical theater, and finally jazz. Her favorite, and most influential vocalists, range from Regina Spektor to the illustrious Ella Fitzgerald.

Colleen studied classically with Karen Pendleton of Bangor, Maine while still in her high school years. Colleen was lucky enough to attend Bangor High School, which is well known for its excellent and diverse musical programs, including a jazz choir. This led to her passion for jazz and her eventual contact without David Dempsey, head of the Jazz program at William Paterson University where Colleen attended an intensive summer program before her senior year of high school. She later went on to attend William Paterson for work on a Bachelors in music. While there she studied classical voice with Stephan Bryant and jazz with Nancy Morano. Colleen later transferred to University of Southern Maine where she continued her classical vocal education with David Goulet, and her jazz education with Michelle Snow.

Colleen’s experience recording started at the age of eleven when Colleen recorded a cd with her Royal School of Church Music Choir, entitled “Sing my Soul.” This choir then went on to do a three week tour of England. During her high school years Colleen was a member of a ska band called the Ska Rockets which did very well and it was with this band, at the age of seventeen, that she did her first real recording on their debut album “In Flight”. They opened for such bands as Big D and Catch twenty-two. Ironically, Colleen went on to attend William Paterson with the guitar player from this band as he too procured a love for Jazz. All other subsequent recordings have been smaller Jazz Recordings .

Colleen has participated in several festivals including the American Folk Festival which she has sang at for the past three years and hopes to participate in again this year. She also took part in the Berkley Jazz Festival at the age of seventeen where she was awarded an outstanding vocalist award. Other festivals include Jazz and Classical All-State as well as District Five, several years running during high school.
Colleens ultimate goal in music is simply to have it be an integral and permanent part of her life. She cannot imagine life without music and hopes that she will never have to.

Pianist Emmett Harrity has been playing piano for 13 years. His major influences include Bill Evans, Lennie Tristano, Lee Konitz, Keith Jarrett, Ahmad Jamal & Hank Jones.

Emmett studied with Daryl Rhodes of Bangor ME, Jeff Holmes at UMass Amherst, and Mark Shilansky, Steve Grover and Jed Wilson at University of Southern Maine.
His musical goals are to continue studying piano in a variety of different styles, and to keep enjoying the unique creative and interactive experiences that stem from playing and improvising jazz in a group setting.

Bassist Nick Merriam began studying bass, along with guitar at about ten years old, and was initially introduced to classical bass. He got in to jazz at age 12.
Jazz became Nick’s primary focus and he would go on to attend Berklee College of Music in order to further his education. While at Berklee, he became involved in many different projects and began his professional music career, playing in numerous weddings, banquets, restaurants, and musicals. One of his musical projects, Preyhoven, recorded a CD in the fall of 2010 of original compositions by Nicholas. Together this trio moved to New York City where they would perform frequently throughout the next year.

He now resides in Portland, Maine where he is involved in numerous projects of varying styles, and is focusing on composition at University of Southern Maine. Last semester his piece for orchestra was selected to be performed by the Southern Maine Symphony Orchestra.


Band Leader and Drummer Rob Schreiber began playing piano at 5. In the fourth grade he picked up the flute. To his mom’s chagrin, he fell in love with the drums at 11 and his instrument would no longer fit in to his backpack. Rob had his first professional gig at 18, then moved East in 1985 and got to play with great local, regional, and national players in the prolific Baltimore/Washington DC jazz scene. Rob studied music at University of Maryland – Baltimore County and Goucher College. He has been fortunate to play with such jazz luminaries as Shirley Horn, Drew Gress, Kirk Lightsey, Derek Day, Larry Camp, Mike Cerri, Larry Kinling, Gary Thomas, Steve Novosel, Slide Hampton, Carl Grubbs, Butch Warren, and many, many more talented musicians including his current group.

Just as his music career was ready to takeoff, repetitive motion injuries forced him into retirement for almost 15 years. In 2009 he was able to return to drumming at the Keane Music Festival with the Portland based group, Spyside. This was due to great therapy he received from physical therapist Paul Brown of Back in Motion and chiropractor Fawn Dunphy of Chiropractic Healing Arts. Both practice in South Portland.

This month marks Rob’s first anniversary of playing his full trap kit in Portland and his 30 year anniversary of getting his beautiful looking and sounding Sonor trap kit. Here is the story - The day after Christmas, 1977, Rob launched a lobbying campaign on his parents to get his first drum set. They got Rob a brand new Reuther 5-piece kit complete with cymbals. It was a great student kit. However, as Rob got better and became really serious about drumming as a career, he began to outgrow the instrument. No matter how he tuned the drums, he could never get them to sound like those he listened to on the records. So, he began to save money for his first professional kit, scraping about $300 to get a Gretch 3-piece kit (no snare or hardware) from the world famous Frank’s Drum Shop in Chicago. Rob’s mom drove him from DeKalb to Chicago so he could make his purchase. When they got there, he saw this gorgeous 4-piece Rosewood Sonor kit in the corner. He simply could not take his eyes off it. Rob would go and look at it, then back to the Gretch kit he could afford. The salesman saw Rob’s curiosity and told him the kit was on sale for half price since Frank’s was going out of business and they needed to move their merchandise. Rob told him he only had a fifth of that. Then Rob’s mom piped up and said, “Your uncle Jimmy used to say, that sometimes you just have to go first class!” With that, the kit was Rob’s, which he has had for 30 years come this April. Rob spent the next year paying back his mom by working at McDonald’s!  Thanks mom!