Opening Day for South County Jazz Club's 2016-17 season

Two days after baseball concluded its year with a historic Chicago Cubs win in the World Series, the South County Jazz Club featured trombonist Greg Nielsen's quartet for the opening of its 2016-17 concert season.

Greg Nielsen

Nielsen, a 30-years-plus music educator at Sarasota's Booker Middle School, is one of the most versatile musicians around. Trombone is his main instrument, but he also brought his flugelhorn and trumpet. Somehow he forgot the double-belled euphonium that he also plays on occasion.

His band for this event featured bassist Don Mopsick, drummer-vocalist David Pruyn and a pleasant surprise at the piano: Danny Sinoff. Eddie Tobin had been advertised for the gig, but somehow double-booked himself - and had a simultaneous gig of his own in Sarasota.



The quartet played principally Great American Songbook material plus three Nielsen originals: "Elegant Ella" (written for his girlfriend, not Ella Fitzgerald), "Samba For You" and a catchy thing called "Yep!" 

At one point, Nielsen played both trombone and flugelhorn, shifting back and forth with ease.

Pruyn sang two vocal numbers, "Two for the Road" and "I'll Never Smile Again." Late in the second set, Sinoff was featured on vocals with his classic version of "Night and Day." Mopsick and Pruyn also had a clever scat-trading moment that highlighted the second-set opener, "There Will Never Be Another You."

Danny Sinoff

There was one great bonus for this show. At his own performances, mostly in the Punta Gorda-Fort Myers area, singer-pianist Sinoff sticks very closely to tunes popularized by Frank Sinatra. This afternoon in Venice was a terrific opportunity for him to dig into more music - some of it for the first time - and nail it. He's a fine and imaginative pianist with a broader repertoire than many fans realize. He would do well to share more of it on his own gigs.


This matinee concert was at the Unitarian Universalist  Congregation of Venice. Next up on the SCJC schedule: trumpeter James Suggs' Miles Davis Tribute Concert at the Venice Art Center at 7 p.m. on December 7.

Danny Sinoff, Don Mopsick, Greg Nielsen, David Pruyn