Bob Stewart
Bob Stewart started his singing career at the age of fifteen with the Paul Martell 17-piece dance band at the famous Roseland Ballroom in New York City. He later sang with other dance bands including Shep Fields, Art Mooney and Henry Jerome. He sang at many of the major theaters and hotels in the USA and Europe. including the Capitol Theater and Radio City Music Hall in New York City and the Paris Opera House in France. He eventually went out on his own and recorded 12 sides for MGM Records. He was a featured singer at WLW-TV in Cincinnati (where Rosemary Clooney and Doris Day got their start).

With the overnight ascendancy of Rock & Roll, saloon and many of the big band singers like Stewart were marginalized to the ends of the musical world by the corporate taste makers of Tin Pan Alley. The philosophic Stewart took events in stride, retreating to his other passion, fishing. But after captaining a party boat out of Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay for decades, a chance invitation to sit in with a local band led to a successful comeback.

"...They've just about all gone, All the great crooners, Cosby, Sinatra, Haymes, Eckstine and so many more that used to sing songs that had real melodies and words that were literate and meaningful. Almost all gone, because we nostalgics still have Bob Stewart and his new "Love Songs" album (VWCD-4111). "Love Songs" is lush, textured and romantic and where will you find romance in the songs of Britney Spears or the other screamers they call singers these days?"
Ken Meades
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Angelo DiPippo
Angelo Di Pippo has recorded and concertized with such artists as Peggy Lee, Billy Eckstine, James Earl Jones, Bob Stewart, Judy Collins, The Ramones, Robert Merrill, Harry Belafonte, Debbie Reynolds,Donald O'Connor, Randy Newman, Theodore Bikel, The Four Lads, Connie Francis, Roberta Peters, Don Sebesky and others. His appearances include the Newport Jazz Festival, The Tonight Show, The Regis Philbin Show, The New York City Ballet, Sesame Street, The New York Pops with Skitch Henderson and more.He was featured on the sound track for the movie, "The Godfather". He was voted "The Best Jazz Accordionist in America" in 1994 by Keyboard Magazine.

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Aloisio Aguiar
Pianist and composer Aloisio Aguiar from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil has been performing for more than 30 years. He is a natural musician and carries pure music in his soul. Whatever he's playing, he brings life into any environment. He began studying classical piano and soon after dedicated himself to Chorinho, a form of popular Brazilian music of that time. During his teenage years, he took part in the jam sessions in Ipanema where the Bossa Nova was created and began his career playing Brazilian jazz.

By 1970, he was established among the Brazilian community of musicians by playing with some of Brazil's most renowned such as Milton Nascimento, Gal Costa and Leni Andrade. Later in 1973, he became the keyboardist and arranged for Gilberto Gil's band, participating in national tours and recording several albums.

In 1975, Aloisio traveled to the United States. In Los Angeles, he recorded with Cal Tjader, Airto, Flora Purim and Jon Lucien. During this period, he was the musical director and keyboardists for the groups Caldera and Redbone. Since 1977, he has been living in New York City and has performed in concerts with Herbie Mann, Olatunji, Ron Carter and Paquito D'Rivera and others. As an arranger and producer he has completed three CDs for Adela Dalto on Venus and Milestone Records which includes some of his original compositions.

"...from all the Brazilian piano players that I know, and I know many, he is the greatest one. Many generations will come, as they have gone by, before another Brazilian piano player can be compared to Aloisio. He plays with his heart!"
Cenir Aruda
BRAZILIAN FANTASY, KUVO
Denver, CO

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Gail Wynters
It's been a long crazy road for the singer (born Nancy Gail Shivel) who first found her calling in her father's Nazarene church back home in Ashland, Kentucky, belting out some impromptu baby blues one morning in the middle of Sunday services. The rest of the family were up front performing when the youngest, all of 18 months, decided it was time to join the family chorus. "I saw them all singing, so I just got right on up there and opened my mouth - so I'm told, " she says. laughing. Later, when the family toured churches and singing conventions throughout the South, they were dubbed, "The Shivel Family Singers with Gail - The Little Girl with the Built-in Speakers."

But church music wasn't going to contain Gail's talent or her fierce desire to reach people with her music. Stan Kenton asked the teenager to tour with his band (she was too young); a Harvard musicologist, clued to her uncanny ability to actually sing chords - major and minor triads - wanted her to study serious music...There was a Capitol recording contract in Nashville that went nowhere. There was an album produced by country music Wesley Rose who dubbed her Gail Wynters. There was a highly acclaimed RCA album that just got lost.

Nothing, until now, that gave an honest accounting of a true vocal marvel, one who wears her heart on her sleeve, and yet is always her own woman, always an original stylist. To this day, she'll break into song at the drop of a hat, a constant, flowing river of music always seems to be running through her head. Music makes her happy, even if she uses it to break our hearts.
John Anderson
ARTS EDITOR, NEW YORK NEWSDAY

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Adam Makowicz
Adam Makowicz was born in Czechoslovakia on August 18, 1940 of Polish parents and was raised in Poland from the age of six. His mother, a classical pianist and singer was his first piano teacher. Later he attended a high school for musically gifted children and the Fryderyck Chopin School of Music in Krakow. In the early 50s, he discovered Willis Conover's radio program, "Music USA-Jazz Hour", and from then on jazz claimed his undivided interest and devotion. Unfortunately for Makowicz, jazz was considered decadent music in Poland. The Chopin School refused to teach him unless he gave up playing jazz, and again follow his parents wishes for him to become a classical pianist.

At the age of sixteen, Makowicz ran away from his home and school. Along with friends who had similar interests, he began pursuing life as a jazz musician. Finally, after two years of homeless, hand-to-mouth existence, he found a small underground jazz club in Krakow. He was allowed to sleep under the piano in exchange for playing at night and sweeping the floor during the day. "I played, practiced or thought about jazz 24 hours a day there," he says. Learning first by listening closely to the broadcasts arid ordering of jazz greats such as Art Tatum, Erroll Garner, Fats Waller, Earl Hines, Benny Goodman and Teddy Wilson, Makowicz began to develop his own style and technique. His hard work and dedication eventually paid off, as the ordering he began making in the mid-sixties brought him a great deal of popularity and critical acclaim. Adam became a celebrity in Poland and was even awarded a Gold Medal for his contribution to the arts. By 1977, he had performed worldwide and earned the votes of the "Jazz Forum" readers as, "Europe's number-one jazz pianist" for seven years. Finally, in 1978, Makowicz fulfilled his dream and moved to New York.

Since that time he has recorded many more albums, increasing his selected discography to 32 positions, and has appeared at most major jazz clubs, festivals, and concert halls in the United States, Europe, Canada, and Peru. He has shared the concert stage with Sarah Vaughan, Earl "Fatha" Hines, George Shearing, Marian McPartland, Teddy Wilson, Herbie Hancock, Benny Goodman, Benny Carter and Phil Woods, to name a few. He has also appeared as a guest soloist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra and many symphony orchestras in the United States and Europe, including the National Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

"Adam Makowicz has been praised by Benny Goodman, compared with Art Tatum, Eroll Garner and Teddy Wilson, honored by jazz publications and toasted all over Europe as a genius. Mr. Makowicz's fiery style, firm chording, and rapid Tatumesque, right-hand phrasing make him more than deserving of the accolades he has received."
Jim Fusilli
WALL STREET JOURNAL

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