TROMBONE

ART BLATT received his Bachelors degree in Music Education and Master’s Degree in Performance from Temple University in Philadelphia. He has performed as a trombonist with the San Antonio Symphony and various orchestras in the Philadelphia area. His experience includes playing opera, concerts and variety shows. He played for headline stars including Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Milton Berle, Bobby Darin, Burt Bacharach, Liza Minelli, and many other headliners in the Philadelphia, New York and Atlantic City area. Art’s vast jazz experience includes playing with the big bands of Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, Buddy Rich and Tex Beneke. He is also well known as a dynamic Dixieland Jazz musician on both trombone and tuba. His teaching experience includes teaching at Settlement School in Philadelphia, where he helped Robin Eubanks and John Lofton achieve prominence in the world of jazz and symphonic playing. He was also employed for many years as a Middle School Band Director. Art retired to Naples in 2003 and continues his professional work as a trombonist with the Port Charlotte Symphony, the Gulf Coast Symphony, and the Southwest Florida Symphony. Art can be heard playing his trombone and tuba with many local bands and orchestras in Fort Myers and Naples.

SCOTT LAYMAN (Principal Trombone) is from Peoria, Illinois. He started playing professionally with a local dance orchestra at age 15. Through and after college, Scott performed with numerous bands, combos, and symphony orchestras in a three state area. He has toured for a year each with the Jan Garber Orchestra and the Al Pierson Orchestra. Scott also spent a year serving on the M.S. Independence with American Hawaii Cruise Lines and 2 years on the M.S. Caribe with Commodore Cruise Lines.

CRAIG MAYER was born in North Dakota and lived in Edina Minnesota before moving to SW Florida twenty-two years ago. He is currently an active practicing dentist and has his office in Lehigh Acres. He has a love for music and played in the Edison Concert Band for fifteen years,  Southerners British Brass Band for seven years, and currently plays Euphonium in the Sousa National Concert Band for one year, as well as Bass Trombone for McGregor Baptist Church Orchestra and Big Band for twenty years,  and  the Bonita Springs Concert Band and Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestra for the last two years.

TOM MORRIER