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December 2005 • Summer 2005 • Winter 2005 • August 2004 • July 2004 • January 2004 • In other news... • January 2008 • March 2008
Spring 2006
Wow, some exciting news. We have just inked a deal with Ruggles Grill to play 3-4 Saturdays per month in the Jazz Room at Ruggles -- Featuring the Mark Dini Group. This is the original Ruggles at Westheimer and Montrose. There is a history of live music in that room. Many Houston artists and musicians have played there over the years including the band I played with regulary there in 1994, Above the Rimm, Commerical Art, Resolution, Ken Mondshine and many others.
For the past couple of years, the WAVE 95.7 Jazz Brunch has been broadcast by the Houston Music scene icon, Donna McKenzie. The brunch has been quite a success. My good friend Ken Mondshine has been the host and I have played with his band 2-3 Sundays per month at the brunch. Also, the Mark Dini Group has subbed for Ken a number of times on the brunch.
Bruce Molzan, the owner and chef of this outstanding, popular and recognized restaurant, wanted to get music back on weekend nights. He is starting with Saturday nights and may expand to Fridays.
We will be playing from 9pm-1am and there will be an $8 cover charge per person. We begin on March 25th. Please see the show dates section of the website for more details of the Saturdays we will be performing there. For further information on Ruggles, you can call the restaurant at 713.524.3879.
Thanks for your support and hope to see you there!
Mark
December 2005
What a fun fall this has been. We appreciate all of your support and for those of you checking us out for the first time, welcome.
In September, Joe Sample sat in twice with Ken Mondshine band (pretty much same cats as the Mark Dini Group) at the Wave 95.7 Jazz Brunch at Ruggles. What a thrill. In addition, having Joe participate in the benefit Ken´s band did for Skip Nallia was great. It was fun surprising Joe by playing one of his songs "Way Back Home" from the Crusaders days.
Our November gig at Sambuca was incredible. Halfway through the Saturday show during one of the breaks, I met Mary Griffin, who sings (tours with) with Patti LaBelle and Christina Aguilera. She sat it with us and absolutely tour the roof of the place. Then, I was informed Brian McKnight was in the balcony. I met him and invited him to sit in with us which he did. It was a magical night. Check out the photos in the photos section.
Please check the website for calendar updates and I hope to see you at the show. If you would like to be added to the email list, email me at jazznotes@markdinigroup.com.
Thanks for checking out our website and our music. The group continues to be busy with our regular one weekend per month gig at Sambuca as well as occasionally hosting the Jazz Brunch at Ruggles whenever Ken Mondhsine (the regular) host is out. When Ken is in I usually play with his group as well. He often uses cats that also play in my group so we end up doing a fair amount of material from the Mark Dini Group book as well.
The Sunday Brunch at Ruggles has been great. The crowds have grown that they are now always bursting at the seams. The radio exposure is a big help (thanks to Donna McKenzie) and the fact that Ruggles is a great restaurant (thanks to Bruce Molzan) all works together to make it a great thing. Joe Sample came and sat in for a few tunes recently. What a thrill that was!
It looks like we will be playing at the Galveston Island Jazz Festival this fall. Nothing firm yet but they have expressed interest. We were sold out of our first two cds "Green Light" and "Back for Seconds" but now have them available again as well. So if you don?t have those and would like to get one, you can get them at one of our shows or follow the purchase cds icon on this site.
Thanks again for your support and we look forward to seeing you soon at one of our shows.
Mark
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The holiday season was quite hectic, but fun with so much going on. We hosted the Wave Jazz Brunch at Ruggles for three Sundays in December. We played a weekend at Sambuca and a night at Kirby´s Prime Steakhouse in the Woodlands as well. In addition to the Mark Dini Group, I had various sideman dates including several dates with Dean James at the Red Cat, Sunday Jazz Brunch with Ken Mondshine (at Ruggles), New Year´s Eve with the Shapeshifters at the Rice Lofts´ famous and historic Crystal Ballroom, and private party with the Kelly Dean Band.
2005 is shaping up to be busy as well. We had a great gig early in January at Sambuca with dates scheduled through the Spring there and at Kirby´s in the Woodlands. I have also been doing a couple of Sunday´s a month for the past three months or so with Ken Mondshine at the Wave Sunday Jazz Brunch at Ruggles. It is great fun with great musicians. Skip Nallia usually plays piano and is an outstanding jazz pianist.
If you are not already on our email list just email jazznotes@markdini.com and we will be glad to add you upon your request.
The website is now set up so that if someone hears the music samples and wants to purchase a cd there is an address where you can send a check and get a cd back on short order. We are exploring the possibility of online credit cards as well and Amazon and CD Baby. For now, you can get cds through our mailing address or at our gigs.
Thanks so much for your support. We look forward to seeing you soon at one of our shows.
Greetings everyone. This was going to be a quiet summer for the band as we took a three month break from our regular one weekend per month at Sambuca. However, the sold out show at the Verizon Theater opening up for Boney James changed all of that. The gig went well beyond our wildest dreams. We were overwhelmed with the response, especially the standing ovation at the end! After the show we sold quite a few CDs.
The positive response from the show and inquiries about CD availability have led us to try to find more ways to make our cds available. You can do that through the Purchase Music section of the website.
We resume our fall schedule at Sambuca starting in September. So, we hope to see you there. Also, I recently did a guest appearance with Ken Mondshine Band at the 95.7 Wave Jazz Brunch at Ruggles. I will be doing that occasionally. Feel free to email me at jazznotes@markdini.com if you want to find out if I plan to do that on any particular week. Occasionally I will stop in and sit in with Dean James over at the Red Cat. So you never know!
Mark
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July 02, 2004
It's official. We have been booked to open for Boney James at the Verizon Wireless Theatre on Friday July 23rd. The show is expected to sell out or come very close. While we have opened for Larry Carlton, Chuck Mangione and Roy Hargrove in the past, it was at a much smaller venue. I'm pretty geeked. Mucho thanks to Donna McKenzie for her support.
The lineup will be:
Mark Dini - guitar
David Caceres - alto sax
Keith Vivens - bass
George Coward - vocals
Ted Wenglinski - keys
Neal Goates - drums
January 2004
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Greetings,
As you may know, our fourth cd "Live at Sambuca" is complete. You can pick up a copy if you wish from me when we perform at Sambuca. We are booked one weekend per month there for 2004 for the fifth straight year. We are so appreciative of such a long standing gig!
The Mark Dini Group has also been collaborating with Smooth Jazz Sax artist, Dean James for some gigs at the Red Cat Jazz Café. We played Janurary 1st and are playing super bowl weekend Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. Thanks to Donna McKenzie and the folks at 95.7 The Wave, Smooth Jazz Radio for coming out and helping promote local jazz artists. Also, the promotion on the radio has been a big help as well.
This year we intend to re-release our fist two cd's "Green Light" and "Back for Seconds" which have both sold out. We are looking at bundling them both together and adding two bonus tracks that we recorded recently.
We thank you for your support. Please come out to see us at Sambuca and you can send me an email at jazznotes@markdini.com.
Best,
Mark
In other news...
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Michelle and I had a chance to go to the sold out Guitar and Saxes show recently at the Verizon Theatre. What a great show. Jeff Golub was roasting. He has become one of my favorite artists and guitarists in recent years. If you are looking for some great music to check out, I highly recommend his new release on GRP entitled "Soul Sessions". Anything by him or his band, Avenue Blue, is great. Check out Jeff's webiste at jeffgolub.com. Also, see Jeff's comments about our upcoming live release below.
----- Original Message -----
From: JEFFREY
To: mdini@***.***
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: Greetings from Houston
Hi,
It was great fun hanging out. Thanks for the hospitality. When I arrived in NY I dropped of my bags in my apt. and headed straight out to our Hamptons house. Unfortunately your CD is in my bag so I haven't heard it.
What I heard in the car sounded amazing! You really play clean!. Great sound, feel, the full monty! The release date for "Soul Sessions" is Aug. 5th. This is one of my favorite CD's that I've done so I hope that you like it.
See ya,
Jeff
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January 2008
2007 was a very busy year for the band as we continued to play regularly at Sambuca as well as a few dates at The Red Cat Jazz Café, Concerts in Central Park in the Woodlands, Kirby's in the Woodlands, and other various and sundry gigs and private parties.
In December of 2007, we had a date at Sambuca and most of my jazz cats who play with me were unavailable. So, I gathered some other musician buddies of mine who I have played with in other bands and we put together a different kind of thing for the gig. We played classic rock all night. It was a lot of fun. What surprised us was how well it went over with the patrons, management, bar tenders etc...We enjoyed it as well.
As Sambuca has evolved away from being a jazz club I guess this was not surprising. I love to play jazz, contemporary jazz, fusion, and our original music but realize that the classic rock thing works much better there. So, we are going to keep doing the classic rock thing at Sambuca for now and we have re-established our previous relationship with Grapino di Nino, where we used play years ago. There we will play more jazz oriented music, our own tunes etc...
Check the calendar and we hope to see you there. Hopefully the variety of music and venues will be a positive thing. We will check it out this year and see how it goes.
March 2008
Greetings! Thank you for checking our website and music! We greatly appreciate the fan support and interest in the group. The Mark Dini Group continues to play regularly at our regular venues. Also, The Mark Dini Group has spun off a second band called "FM". "FM" will be playing at Sambuca occasionally on Saturdays after a Friday engagement there with the Mark Dini Group. In addition to the Mark Dini Group and FM, I continue to do other side man stuff including playing with Watercolors in May and playing the Sunday brunch at Ruggles with Ken Mondshine. The Bio on FM is below. For fans of the Mark Dini Group, not to worry. The Mark Dini Group and it's focus on contemporary jazz, jazz and fusion will be my primary focus. However, it will be fun to jam with FM for the classic rock stuff. I decided to split the projects in order for both to have their specific identify, to avoid confusion, and to keep the brand of the Mark Dini Group intact, while being able to do the other stuff with FM.
*Bio for "FM"*
FM is a project led by guitarist Mark Dini of "The Mark Dini Group". While Mark continues to play regularly at Sambuca with his contemporary jazz group, "The Mark Dini Group", he has recruited some stellar musicians for a classic rock and pop group called "FM". This band includes vocalist and keyboardist David DeLaGarza from the multi-Grammy winning Latin Supergroup, "La Mafia" and "Cosmic Latte", his own band that he fronts and leads. Also featured in the band is vocalist, guitarist and keyboard player, Adam Estes, who plays at Sambuca regularly with "The Shapeshifters". George Coward, bassist and vocalist with several veteran Sambuca bands including "The Mark Dini Group", "Watercolors" and "Doppleganger". The drum chair is held by Javier Zenteno, from the "Norma Zenteno Band" and the "Javier Zenteno Band". Multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Giancarlo Caffarena, who leads the "Matchstick Band", also plays with "FM" on some dates.
Dini talks about the project, "This is a band of band leaders. I put a book of classic rock tunes together and invited a number of talented cats to participate. This band allows us to dig in to the rich history and explosion of musical creativity that took place during rock's hey day in the 1970s. I grew up listening to this music and it is fun to revisit it with such talented musicians. We have been overwhelmed by the response the band has had in it's first few gigs". The band covers material from a wide range of 70's artists including Traffic, Steely Dan, America, The Eagles, Yes, Steve Miller, The Beatles, Santana, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, and many others.
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