Randy Napoleon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Randy Napoleon is an internationally recognized jazz guitarist who has played the top venues in this country--Lincoln Center, The Hollywood Bowl, The Kennedy Center, Radio City Music Hall--and other top houses throughout the world.
He has toured with Benny Green, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra (CHJO), led by John Clayton (bassist) and Jeff Hamilton (drummer), and with Michael Bublé. He has appeared on TV in Japan with CHJO and throughout Europe and the United States with Bublé. His U.S. TV appearances with Bublé include Letterman, Leno, Ellen Degeneres, The View, The Today Show, Regis and Kelly, Dancing with the Stars, the Radio Music Awards, Entertainment Tonight, and a PBS special, Caught in the Act, which is available on DVD from Reprise Records.
"Randy Napoleon is the most exciting guitarist of our generation," said Michael Bublé.
Napoleon leads his own trio with Quincy Davis on drums and Jared Gold on Hammond B3 organ. They have toured throughout the United States and the United Kingdom, where they did a concert for BBC radio and played several clubs.
They have put out a critically acclaimed CD, ENJOY THE MOMENT, and Azica Records recently released another, BETWEEN FRIENDS. Both feature organist Jared Gold and drummer Quincy Davis; they have been compared to Wes Montgomery's organ trio. BETWEEN FRIENDS features the trio on half the tracks and a quartet on the other, with Davis, bassist David Wong, and the renowned Benny Green (pianist).
"Napoleon plays with a gentle, purring tone that makes you lean in close to hear its range of color and articulation, and his improvisations are true narratives, a collection of shapely melodies rather than a series of prepackaged licks," critic Mark Stryker wrote in the THE DETROIT FREE PRESS. http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:nRncS01WoygJ:www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article%3FAID%3D/20070105/COL17/701050418/1039/ENT+%22randy+napoleon%22+Freep&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us
Randy Napoleon appears on many other CDs, including THE CLAYTON-HAMILTON JAZZ ORCHESTRA: LIVE AT MCG and the Grammy-nominated MICHAEL BUBLE: CAUGHT IN THE ACT.
Randy Napoleon was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1977. His family moved to Ann Arbor, MI when he was two. One of Napoleon's formative experiences was in a big band at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, led by the trumpeter Louis Smith. He also learned in jam sessions at the Bird of Paradise club in Ann Arbor and by listening to WEMU jazz radio. Napoleon went on to study at the University of Michigan School of Music.
