Welcome back the Eugene Hard Bop Collective for a concert of foot-tapping, finger-snapping, feel-good Jazz with universal appeal. Singable melodies and lyrical solos. The classic songs of the most popular era of Jazz from the 50s and 60s. Blues/gospel/funk influences, jazzed-up versions of popular and folk songs.
Dave Bender trumpet/flugelhorn
Scott Mitchell alto sax, flute
Christoph Greiner Kontrabass
Paul Slate drums
7:30 PM - 10:00 PM | $25
Dave Bender is a member of Barb Healy’s “Groove Too”, “The Fighting Instruments of Karma”, "Fat Jam Temple", "The Macedonian Hubcaps", "Buzzy and the Benzedrines", and the “Girl Circus Orchestra” and has played for many years with legendary PNW Salsa band “Caliente”. He performs regularly with the Eugene Symphony and the Oregon Mozart Players. He composes, arranges, orchestrates, leads bands and records. Dave teaches trumpet at Lane Community College, in his own studio of 20 students and coaches the Eugene Springfield Youth Symphonies brass.
Discovering his love of jazz at an early age, Scott Mitchell has played the saxophone since the age of seven. While still in high school, Scott studied with the great jazz educator and historian Carl Woideck, living legend drummer Mel Brown and many others, and received numerous “Outstanding Performances” for performances at Pacific Northwest Jazz festivals. A BFA in Jazz Studies from the Herb Alpert School of Music at Cal Arts followed where Scott studied under Paul Novros, saxophonist Vinny Golia and bassists Charlie Haden and Alphonso Johnson. Scott’s earliest influences were Charlie Parker and later Cannonball Adderley. His performance at a Cal Arts recital, dedicated to Cannonball, prompted one of his jurors to state he was “channeling Cannonball.” Most recently Scott has performed with Tony Glausi's 9 - piece band, experimental jazz/rock band "Yama Yama", and "The Essentials". He is a composer with a large online presence and is currently involved with electronic music, specifically with scoring soundtracks for video games using his influences in jazz, funk, and soul.
Paul Slate has been playing drums around Eugene since the early ’80s. He has recorded many albums with Bill Sabol, played on Canadian jazz guitarist Allan Vance’s album “Stories of the Pacific Northwest”, worked with John Workman, Emmett Williams, Chris Sorenson, "The Benefactors", “Bop Shop”, and many others.
During his tenure as bassist with the Swing Shift Jazz Orchestra Christoph Greiner had the opportunity to perform with many notable guest artists including Clairdee, George Colligan, Gary Hobbs, Holly Hofman, Mike Horsfall, Ken Peplowski, Hubert Laws, Darmon Meader, Dick Oats, Chuck Redd, Bobby Shew and Mike Wofford. Christoph also performs with Bill Beach & Brasil Beat, Nancy Crider Hamilton, Tim Clarke’s Red Top Trio, Bob Ragan’s “Slightly Retro Jazz” and Canadian jazz guitarist R. Allan Vance. While still living in Germany, Christoph had the fortune to study Jazz bass with “European monster bassist” (T. Conrad) Dieter Ilg (EchoJazz bass award 2011/14/16). Once in Oregon, he continued refining his skills by participating in festival-attending UO combos directed by Steve Owen, Gary Versace and Toby Koenigsberg.
The idea of the Eugene Hard Bop Collective was born over dinner in the spring of 2012 by acoustic bassist Christoph Greiner and drummer Paul Slate. Inspired by reading Allan Goldsher’s book “Hard Bop Academy: The Sidemen of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers” a need to play music in a small group format providing lots of improvisational freedom, harmonized horn parts, some post-bop chord progressions, yet melodies that remain accessible and oftentimes singable, and adding latin- and soul-based grooves beyond swing, was identified. In its first incarnation the band’s horn line consisted of David Heyer (tp), Eric Johnson (ts) and Ryan Chaney (tb) with Jerry Gleason (g), Paul Slate (dr) and Christoph Greiner (b) manning the rhythm section. For two years from late 2012 the group worked as sextet with Glenn Griffith (tb), Scott Mitchell (as), Dave Bender (tp) and then as quintet with now longtime members Scott, Dave, Jerry, Paul and Christoph. For the 2021 season the Collective was fortunate to have been joined by guitarist extraordinaire David Mitchell who relocated to Eugene after working for many years as Jazz musician in Barcelona, Spain.
Click the link below to buy tickets now
https://thejazzstation.org/get-tickets/upcoming-shows/#!event/register/2025/9/26/eugene-hard-bop-collective?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=event&utm_campaign=ehbc
Online ticket purchases close one hour before showtime. If the show is NOT sold out, and tickets remain, they can be purchased directly at the box office door. Doors open 30 minutes prior to showtime.
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