SJZ Collective, composed of some of the Bay Area’s most prominent jazz voices, join forces with Ukrainian trumpeter Yakiv Tsvietinsky to pay tribute to the late Roy Hargrove. Since all band members double as composers and arrangers, count on a night of thoughtfully re-imagined material from the catalog of a boundary-breaking modern jazz heavyweight gone too soon.

SJZ Collective is the brainchild of drummer/composer Wally Schnalle. The ensemble features current and former educators from San Jose Jazz’s Summer Jazz Camp. After continually receiving raves for their post-camp faculty concerts, they chose to form a group which performs throughout the year and has toured Asia twice.

Each year, all members of the Collective contribute arrangements of compositions by jazz luminaries. In previous years, they have reimagined the Music of Monk, Mingus, Weather Report, and Chick Corea. For this “Counterpoint” engagement, the group features Schnalle, saxophonist Oscar Pangilinan, bassist Saul Sierra, trumpeter John Worley and guitarist Hristo Vitchev.

Lviv, Ukraine based trumpeter, composer, band leader and educator Yakiv Tsvietinskyi is one of the prominent modern voices in the European improvised scene. His familiarity with classical and modernist music allows him to craft developed, complex textures while incorporating the freedom and improvisational elements of jazz music.

Yakiv’s background in education has been molded by institutions all over the world, with some of his most rewarding and challenging work coming from his hometown of Dnipro, where he taught himself about jazz music. He was a recipient of the Yamaha Gulf FZE Trumpet Scholarship in 2015. After graduating from Dnipro Academy of Music in 2016, he received a Fulbright grant to study at Western Michigan University, where he received a Master’s degree in jazz performance. Mentored by acclaimed musicians Scott Cowan, Andrew Rathbun and Keith Hall, Yakiv expanded his knowledge in improvisation, traditional jazz theory and advanced approaches to composition. He was a recipient of two DownBeat Student Music Awards in 2017 and 2018.

Currently, Yakiv Tsvietinskyi is based in Lviv, Ukraine. Despite the war, he teaches at music academies in Dnipro, Lviv, and Kyiv, performs charity concerts, and volunteers.

About Roy Hargrove

Two-time Grammy Award winner Roy Hargrove is widely acclaimed as one of the premier trumpet players of his generation. While always keeping one foot firmly planted in jazz, Hargrove’s career was one of exciting genre-crossing exploration, including collaborations with Branford Marsalis, Christian McBride, Chucho Valdes, D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, Common and many others. He toured worldwide throughout his 30-year career with the Roy Hargrove Quintet, the Roy Hargrove Big Band, Roy Hargrove’s Crisol, the Jazz Networks and his funk/jazz outfit, the RH Factor™, until his death in 2018 at age 49. He entered the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 2021.

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