Introduction to Commercial Jazz Music

Thomas Francis is one of Toronto’s leading pianists and is well known for his extensive background in jazz and soul-based musics. Thomas played with Canadian artists such as Juno Award-winning music icon and jazz vocalist Kellylee Evans, Alexis Baro (Juno-nominated jazz artist), Dan Talevski (MMVA nominee), Melanie Durrant (Juno-nominated R&B artist), KC Roberts & The Live Revolution (Toronto funk band), The Reklaws (CCMA-winning country duo), George St. Kitts (Juno-nominated Toronto soul icon), and many more. 

Thomas completed his diploma in Jazz Performance at Humber College, and bachelor of fine arts at York University. In 2017, he completed his master's in Composition at York where his work focused on the relationship between jazz and hip-hop histories and musics and a new breadth course he created, “Hip Hop: A Study of Blackness.” His works received grants such as the 2019 Special Projects grant by the Toronto Jazz Festival and the 2021 Music Recording Project – EP Category grant from Ontario Arts Council. Additionally, he is well known for his musicianship skills in writing and arranging for strings, having established his own contemporary string ensemble, The Four Strings.  

Thomas is the host of The Jazz Gene, a weekly one-hour show on Toronto’s online jazz radio platform, Jazzcast.ca. Thomas has spent the last five years working as a professor of music at Centennial College and is looking forward to joining Humber’s music program as a full-time faculty member this year.

Trombonist, composer and arranger Kelsley Grant received his bachelor of music from McGill University and completed his graduate studies at the Manhattan School of Music. Shortly after leaving New York, he joined Maynard Fergusonʼs Big Bop Noveau and toured the United States, Germany, Switzerland and England. Kelsley has performed with Aretha Franklin, Jackie Richardson, Frank Sinatra Jr., Michael Buble, Maria Schneider, Michel LeGrand, Nicholas Payton, Sophie Milman, Ranee Lee and Nikki Yanofsky. He toured with Forever Swing and took part in the Toronto productions of Annie, Romancing The One I Love, Ainʼt Misbehavinʼ, The Rat Pack, Kinky Boots, Matilda and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. He has played on several movie soundtracks including Born to Be Blue, Cirque de Soleil Alegría and Les Triplettes De Belleville. Kelsley has been twice nominated for trombonist of the year by the National Jazz Awards. The Jefferson-Grant Quintet won an Opus Award for their first recording and was nominated Acoustic Ensemble of the Year by the National Jazz Awards. Kelsley has served as a faculty member at McGill University, University of Montreal and University of Toronto. He has given master classes and clinics at universities across Canada and is currently a full-time faculty member at Humber College

Johnny Griffith is a multi-Juno Award-nominated saxophonist, composer and producer who has played and recorded with numerous artists including Don Thompson, Hawksley Workman, Jeremy Pelt, Charlie Hunter, The Wailers, Fishbone, Ernesto Cervini’s Tune Town, Alex Dean, Laila Biali, Al Henderson Quintet, Brandi Disterheft and Terra Hazelton, to name a few, and is a member of the popular Canadian funk/hip hop group the Pocket Dwellers. He has toured extensively across Canada, the United States, and Europe performing at all the major Canadian music festivals as well as several international venues, including the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.  
 
Johnny co-leads the Griffith Hiltz Trio (GHT) with guitarist Nathan Hiltz, arriving on the scene with the 2009 album Now & Then, produced by and featuring Canadian jazz legend Don Thompson. Their debut album was selected by Terry McElligott at Jazz FM 91 as Jazz Album of the Year and was nominated for a Grand Prix du Jazz from the Montreal Jazz festival. Their second, more experimental release, This is What You Get, was produced by Canadian cult icon Hawksley Workman and sat at #1 on the national jazz charts for three weeks in 2013. Amid the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, GHT released its third album, Arcade, a nostalgic chiptune-jazz fusion nod to the music of film and video games of the 1980s.
  
The Johnny Griffith Quintet is the artist’s first solo venture and launched with Dance with the Lady in 2015. Featuring NYC’s Jeremy Pelt on trumpet, the album was the featured release on WBGO Jazz radio New Jersey. 2018 saw the release of The Lion, Camel and Child, again with Pelt, previewing at the TD Toronto Jazz Festival 2018.  
  
In 2015, Johnny created the non-profit independent jazz label G-B Records and has gone on to produce and/or engineer Nathan Hiltz’s Songs Poetic and Samways, Whitney Ross-Barris' The Bright Lunch Trio, Graeme Stephen’s Projector Trio, Adrean Farrugia/Joel Frahm’s Blued Dharma, Chris Wallace’s Many Names, Andy Ballantyne’s Play on Words and UK’s NeWt Trio’s “Drip.”

Johnny is also an active film and television composer. He has composed the scores for the films Still to Go and The Recipe, both films appearing in the Toronto International Film Festival, the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival and the Vancouver International Film Festival. He is also a freelance composer for the Bell/CTV media group.

Born in St. Boniface, Manitoba, Johnny has a Bachelor of Music from Humber College, a master’s degree in jazz performance from University of Toronto, and for the past 12 years, he has been a Humber Music faculty member.  Johnny Griffith currently lives and performs in Toronto, Canada.

Born and raised in Ottawa, saxophonist Dave Neill moved to Toronto in 1995 to pursue a jazz performance degree from the University of Toronto, where he studied with Alex Dean and Mike Murley.

Working as a performer, adjudicator and clinician, Dave is active on the freelance scene, including jobs with Johnny Mathis, Wayne Newton, Frankie Valli, Regis Philbin and Nikki Yanofsky. He has adjudicated at festivals across Ontario, including the national Musicfest finals, and has given a clinic at OMEA entitled “Breaking Down Barriers for Jazz Improvisation.”

Now a full-time professor at Humber College, Dave teaches a variety of courses, including Business for Creative Industry and Song Materials, as well as private lessons in the woodwind area. Previously, he taught at the University of Toronto from 2004-2016 and the Humber College Community Music School from 2000-2015, as well as mentoring the next generation of performers at the Youth Jazz Canada’s Summer Jazz Workshop and the IMC Jazz Camp.

Dave completed his master’s in jazz performance at the University of Toronto, and has released two CDs as a leader. His debut quartet CD, All In, featured his original compositions, while his follow-up CD, Daylight, was named as one of the top Canadian Jazz CDs of 2014 by Peter Hum of the Ottawa Citizen.

Anthony Panacci attended the Humber Music jazz program from 1976 to 1980 and has also received his grade 10 Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. He is currently on faculty at Humber teaching jazz piano and in the recording studio department.

Since 1976, he has been playing extensively in the Canadian music scene both live and in the studio. Anthony is a very versatile musician who plays jazz in festivals and clubs across Canada, notably in Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City. In 1986, he toured Canada with classical guitarist Liona Boyd. He has played and recorded pop and country with David Clayton Thomas, Petula Clark, Shirley Eikhard, the Mersey Brothers and Pete Wade, and Latin jazz with the Montuno Police, Robby Ameen and his own project, Eclectica Latino, featuring Raul Pineda and Roberto Viscaino.

Anthony also owns a full digital recording studio in his house where he engineers and produces for bands, singers and music for TV, radio and many different jazz projects, including his own, Eclectica Latino and Blues for Jazz, and his wife Mary’s Her Perfume.

In 2016 and 2017, Anthony played in the house band for the CBC Canadian Screen Awards with Norm MacDonald and Howie Mandel. He was Mississauga's musician of the year award in 1999 and received the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award for Mississauga.