Multi-Instrumentalist Bob Sheppard
with Pianist Adam Hersh, Bassist Will Lyle,
and Special Guest Vocalist, Maria Puga Lareo
Multi-Instrumentalist Bob Sheppard
Pianist Adam Hersh
Bassist Will Lyle
Vocalist Maria Puga Lareo
Date To Be Announced
Tickets $40.00
LOGAN HOUSE
at the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts
8585 Ojai-Santa Paula Rd.
Ojai, CA 93023
Meet the Artists!
A Reception will be held immediately following the performance.
The Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts, in conjunction with Ojai Concerts, is pleased to present the Bob Sheppard Trio with Multi-Instrumentalist Bob Sheppard, Adam Hersh on Piano, Will Lyle on Bass, and Special Guest Vocalist, Maria Puga Lareo!
About Bob Sheppard
For more than four decades, multi-instrumentalist Bob Sheppard has played on countless sessions with an astounding crop of A-list jazz giants—among them Chick Corea, Freddie Hubbard, Michael and Randy Brecker, Mike Stern, Herbie Hancock, Kurt Elling, Dianne Reeves, Lyle Mays, John Beasley and artists within several other genres. He’s also recorded and toured as a leader, contributed to hundreds of movie and TV soundtracks, served as an educator and more.
Bob Sheppard Sax Solo, with Herbie Hancock - Cantaloupe Island
Gigs included work not just with the top jazz artists cited above, but also stars of the pop, rock and R&B worlds, among them Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Queen Latifah, Elvis Costello, Natalie Cole, Randy Newman, Rickie Lee Jones, Boz Scaggs and many others.
Sheppard began playing professionally while still living in the Philadelphia area, where he grew up. He continued while attending college, working various stage shows and even the circus, and soon found gigs accompanying giants of the business such as Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr. and the 5th Dimension. A steady spot in the orchestra of Chuck Mangione provided vital learning experience.
As his reputation grew, Sheppard made the all-important decision to relocate to Los Angeles. The move paid off immediately when he went to work with trumpet legend Freddie Hubbard. The gig lasted several years. “Playing on the same stage as Freddie was a breathtaking and frightening experience,” Sheppard says. “Much like jazz survival training, it exposed everything good and bad about my playing and inspired me to work harder. How lucky I was to get that close to his talent.”
Bob Sheppard Sax Solo on "Straight, No Chaser"
One of Sheppard’s most rewarding ongoing involvements has been his work as an educator. For more than a decade he’s been a part-time faculty member at the USC Thornton School of Music and frequently conducts clinics at colleges.
Adam Hersh is a jazz pianist and composer based out of Los Angeles, California. Recently graduated from Cal State University Northridge, he performs with the funk band “Groove Sauce”, various original music groups under his own name, and many other performing ensembles as a sideman. He competed in the Angel City Jazz Competition in 2013 with the “Interstellar Quintet” winning the chance to perform at LACMA for the Angel City Jazz Festival, and having the performance broadcasted on KJAZZ 88.1. As a member of the “Golan Culture” in 2014, he toured internationally, competing in the “Keep an Eye on Jazz” competition in Amsterdam and recorded a CD of original compositions and arrangements by fellow student and virtuosic young sax player Shai Golan. In the summer of 2016, he toured England with the CSUN Jazz “A” Band, performing in many different venues culminating with a performance at the Hollywood Bowl for the “Playboy Jazz Festival” upon return to the United States. In his last semester at CSUN he competed in the Monterey Next Generation Jazz festival and placed 3rd in the combo division and 2nd in the Big Band. In the summer of 2017 he had the opportunity of being selected as a Ravinia composition fellow. This allowed him to participate in a week long workshop in Highland Park, Illinois where he worked directly with Billy Childs, Rufus, Reid, Nathan Davis, and a group of talented young composers and performers. In October 2017, Adam toured in Holland with the LAHO group featuring alto saxophonist and composer Ben Van Gelder.
Adam has performed with Bob Mintzer, Danny Janklow, Gary Pratt, Bob McCheseny, Scott Whitfield, Rob Lockhart, Pete Christlieb, Ike Sturm, Calabria Foti, Tierney Sutton, Gene Coye, Dave Robaire, Nick Mancini, Anthony Strong, Dan Schnelle, Ben Van Gelder, Kevin Kanner, Mike Cottone, Graham Dechter, Barbara Morrison, Munir Hossn, and Doug Webb.
About Bassist Will Lyle
Will Lyle (born 1994) is an upright and electric bassist, bandleader, composer, arranger, and producer from Orange County, California and based in New York City. A year after graduating from Berklee College of Music, he toured with GRAMMY award-winning drummer Billy Kilson's quartet to Japan in 2017.
He has studied with some of Berklee’s most experienced faculty, and counts Ralph Peterson, Billy Kilson, Neal Smith, Susan Hagen, and Ron Mahdi as some of his most important mentors. He has studied outside of college with Bert Turetzky, Luques Curtis, Steve Dress, John Clayton, David Wong, and Gerald Cannon. He considers himself to have learned an equal amount from his peers.
Lyle previously worked as a freelance and session musician from 2016 to 2021 in Los Angeles and has performed and/or recorded with a number of leading artists.
In 2020 Lyle received a presidential scholarship to study with the most recorded jazz bassist of all time and former member of Miles Davis's band, Ron Carter, at Manhattan School of Music.
His self-released debut record LA Source Codes was released May 2021 and features Bob Sheppard, Marvin "Smitty" Smith, Mahesh Balasooriya, Adam Hersh, Anthony Fung, Nikki Campbell, Mikan Zlatkovich, Jon Mayer and Roy McCurdy, and features several jazz standards and four of Will's original compositions. It is dedicated to the memory of his mentor in jazz, the great Ralph Peterson, Jr. The album received an 8/10 from Music Connection, 3.5/5 on All About Jazz, and was played nationwide on over 20 radio stations. It received two features on Cap Radio's Excellence in Jazz playlist.
In September 2021, Lyle's musical score for the short film "Fame Kills" won Best Original Music for the Nashville 48 Hour Film Festival. The music featured a duet with Lyle and saxophonist Bob Sheppard.
In Spring 2022 he graduated from Manhattan School of Music with a Masters Degree in Jazz Double Bass. He subsequently led a trio at Ornithology in Brooklyn with Dave Kikoski and drummer Adam Arruda. That year, he made his debut performances at Mezzrow and Cellar Dog (previously Fat Cat) as the bassist in the John Merrill Trio, and performed at the Newport Jazz Festival with Ryan Hollander and Miho Sasaki.
In February 2023, Lyle led an international pre-release tour for his project TrioGram and their self-titled album, due for release April 7, 2023. His pianist Bijan Taghavi (member of Rodney Whitaker's quartet and professor at Hillsdale College) accompanied him, and the tour was also fortified by several luminaries of jazz drumming: Joe LaBarbera (former drummer for Bill Evans), Mark Ferber (drummer for Billy Childs) and Lewis Nash (former drummer for Tommy Flanagan). The tour included Mexico and several locations in the Southwestern United States.
In November and December 2022, he did an international tour of Europe, with performances in Germany, Denmark, Greece, and the United Kingdom. He performed as both a leader and sideman.
This was followed by a tour as the bassist in legendary jazz pianist Dave Kikoski's trio with former Chick Corea drummer Gary Novak on drums.The trio played such venues as the Black Cat in San Francisco, CA, The 1905 in Portland, Oregon, and Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center in Los Angeles, CA.
About Vocalist Maria Puga Lareo
Maria Puga Lareo is a Jazz and Brazilian music vocalist, songwriter and producer, originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she collaborated with this culturally rich and historical city’s finest musicians, singing in clubs, theaters and jazz festivals. After starting an independent music label and releasing her first album, her popularity quickly rose in the Argentine music scene, propelling her to perform on bigger stages and demand of media appearances bringing her local status to being one of the cities most noted jazz singers.
Maria started to frequently perform in New York City at the well-known jazz venues, with the Queens Chronicle calling her “a rising new York Star” and the Queens Gazette the “Argentine vocal Star”. She performed internationally at the Symphony Hall of the Kraków Filharmonia, the Jazz Nad Odra Festival in Wroclaw, and Poland Tour with Kuba Stankiewicz International Quartet, working with acclaimed Polish pianist Andrzej Jagodzinski, Chilean jazz fusion legend, Roberto Lecarosand The Lecaros Clan, and Robert Anchipolovsky in Tel Aviv.
Maria’s second album was recorded both in New York and Buenos Aires with arrangements by multi-Grammy winning pianist, arranger and conductor Carlos Franzetti, legendary bassist Eddie Gómez, jazz producer Fernando Gelbard on flute, Ed Uribe on drums, Latin Grammy winner Quique Sinesi’s duo arrangements on guitar, and pianist Frank Collett - famous for his long-standing work with Sarah Vaughan amongst other jazz greats. This album was especially celebrated in Argentina as well as Japan.
"I Thought About You", Bobby Shew - Bob Sheppard Quintet
Featuring Special Guest,
Maria Puga Lareo
Because she recorded Bob Telson’sBagdad Cafe’s theme “Calling You” and while still in Buenos Aires, Maria began a close musical partnership with the Academy Award, Pulitzer, Tony and Grammy nominee. Together they enjoyed sold-out shows performing Telson’s various compositions that Maria describes as treasures, sung in the past by Barbra Streisand, Natalie Cole, George Benson, Joe Cocker, k.d. lang, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, George Michael, etc. Significant with Telson, is their duet “Show Me Your Face” that features Wynton Marsalis on trumpet.
Moving to Los Angeles, Maria performed and recorded with the area’s premiere jazz musicians: Nan Schwartz’ Orchestra, Bobby Shew Quintet, John Beasley, Billy Childs, Bill Cunliffe, Mitch Forman, Russ Ferrante, Larry Koonse, Josh Nelson, Gary Novak, Darek Oles, Alan Pasqua, Otmaro Ruiz, Leo Amuedo, Arturo Sandoval, Mike Valerio and Christian Euman.
Maria Puga Lareo will release her third solo album in 2023, with string arrangements by Grammy winner & 7-time Emmy-nominee composer, arranger and conductor Nan Schwartz as well as arrangements by her husband Bob Sheppard, international jazz recording artist and saxophone legend.
Adam Hersh is a jazz pianist and composer based out of Los Angeles, California. Recently graduated from Cal State University Northridge, he performs with the funk band “Groove Sauce”, various original music groups under his own name, and many other performing ensembles as a sideman. He competed in the Angel City Jazz Competition in 2013 with the “Interstellar Quintet” winning the chance to perform at LACMA for the Angel City Jazz Festival, and having the performance broadcasted on KJAZZ 88.1. As a member of the “Golan Culture” in 2014, he toured internationally, competing in the “Keep an Eye on Jazz” competition in Amsterdam and recorded a CD of original compositions and arrangements by fellow student and virtuosic young sax player Shai Golan. In the summer of 2016, he toured England with the CSUN Jazz “A” Band, performing in many different venues culminating with a performance at the Hollywood Bowl for the “Playboy Jazz Festival” upon return to the United States. In his last semester at CSUN he competed in the Monterey Next Generation Jazz festival and placed 3rd in the combo division and 2nd in the Big Band. In the summer of 2017 he had the opportunity of being selected as a Ravinia composition fellow. This allowed him to participate in a week long workshop in Highland Park, Illinois where he worked directly with Billy Childs, Rufus, Reid, Nathan Davis, and a group of talented young composers and performers. In October 2017, Adam toured in Holland with the LAHO group featuring alto saxophonist and composer Ben Van Gelder. 
Will Lyle (born 1994) is an upright and electric bassist, bandleader, composer, arranger, and producer from Orange County, California and based in New York City. A year after graduating from Berklee College of Music, he toured with GRAMMY award-winning drummer Billy Kilson's quartet to Japan in 2017.
Moving to Los Angeles, Maria performed and recorded with the area’s premiere jazz musicians: Nan Schwartz’ Orchestra, Bobby Shew Quintet, John Beasley, Billy Childs, Bill Cunliffe, Mitch Forman, Russ Ferrante, Larry Koonse, Josh Nelson, Gary Novak, Darek Oles, Alan Pasqua, Otmaro Ruiz, Leo Amuedo, Arturo Sandoval, Mike Valerio and Christian Euman. 
